In 1996, fashion designer Kathleen McCoy turned her home’s garage into a design studio, and started experimenting with leftover bolts of fabric.

Before long, she’d come up with an idea whose time had come: Machine-washable couture fabrics for everyday living.

Now her daughter’s joined Bella Notte Linens, the firm she created, as partner and brand director. Taylor Batlin majored in fine arts at the University of San Francisco, so she gets that the big idea is romance and sumptuous fabrics.

“My mother says that romance never goes out of style,” she says. “The color palette is always organic, with warmer pinks and purples – it’s romantic with the ruffles and way it’s layered on the bed.”

The fabrics for Bella Notte bedding products match that intent. “There’s a range of bedding like coverlets, sheeting and pillow covers in linen, cotton content and velvet.”

They also use a newer, more sustainable fabric. “Tencel is a wood pulp spun into thread and made into fabric – it’s very sustainable and incredibly soft,” she says. “It stands up to the test of time and is luxurious to sleep on.”

For the most part, it’s made of eucalyptus, pine and beech pulp. “It’s only recently made its way into bedding,” she says. “There’s a light sheen to it – and it’s not stiff, but really soft.”

New products are rolled out in spring and fall, with spring favored for lighter colors and fabrics. Today that means the Austin collection in midweight linen, with a relaxed raw edge, along with two new colors: Rouge, a soft pastel pink, and Honeycomb, a golden tone.

Since the late 90s, the firm’s grown to 32 employees making bedding for clients coast-to-coast. “It’s a romantic aesthetic around the country,” she says. “You see a little bit broader market in California and the Southeast, but Texas is the biggest.”

No wonder there – with 26.5 million people and 172 million acres, Texas has plenty of room for romance.

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