The Kearsley Story
"I built Kearsley because the linens my clients needed simply did not exist. Not at the quality, the ethics, or the standard I was willing to specify. So I built them.
Through my years on the board of CARE International’s Bay Area Committee, the deeper stakes of this work became impossible to ignore. Later, while consulting for brands manufacturing in Asia, I saw with my own eyes what the industry prefers to keep hidden.
The factories we were shown were immaculate.
It was only when I wandered off...
Warm machines.
Shackles on the tables.
The conditions of production are almost never visible in the finished product.
That is by design.
Not to make a statement. Not to market an ethics position. But because I believe, and still believe, that it is possible to create something genuinely beautiful without those choices being made at someone else’s expense.
Every fabric we source, every artisan we work with, every thread count we specify is a decision about what kind of world we participate in.
I also believe that the energy put into making something travels with it for the life of the product. What is made with care, skill, and dignity arrives differently than what is not.
That is not a tagline. It is why this company exists.
Our clients live with these linens every day. They deserve to know what went into making them. And so does everyone who made them.
Over twenty-six years, Kearsley has been sustained by more than business. Friends who became clients. Clients who became friends. People who gave their time, their wisdom, and sometimes their own resources simply to help keep it going.
This company was not built alone.
My deepest gratitude goes to my parents, to Emma, to Tracy, to Tasha, to Roberto, to Charlotte, and to Alethia, who have given more than anyone should ever have to ask for.
Heather Kearsley Wolf
Founder
Kearsley Heritage
Margaret Kearsley, known as Nantie
Yorkshire, England
The textile trade runs through this family’s history the way rivers run through mill towns.
Heather’s ancestors were in England’s wool and weaving trades for generations, mill owners and merchants whose names appear in Yorkshire and Lancashire records stretching back more than four centuries. Her father moved through the world of luxury menswear. Her grandmother was a seamstress. Her mother, Gail Wolf, is a third-generation couture craftsperson whose own mother sewed for interior designers and who built a couture dressmaking business of her own.
Heather grew up understanding cloth the way other people understand language: instinctively, structurally, and with an awareness of everything it takes to make something well.
When she opened her own interior design firm and began specifying linens for private residences and boutique hotels, she could not find what she was looking for. The market offered beautiful-looking products whose origins she could not verify and whose quality she could not trust.
So she went directly to the source.
In 1999, Kearsley began producing table linens through a small workshop in Vietnam, a convent whose residents hand-finished every piece. Out of respect for the artisans and the integrity of the work, Kearsley discontinued that line when sourcing conditions changed.
In 2000, Heather traveled to Northern Italy, where introductions through trusted industry relationships led her to the Lombardy atelier partner who would become the foundation of Kearsley’s collections.
On April 3, 2000, Kearsley was formally founded.
In 2001, the first bed linen collections launched, woven and finished in Lombardy by multi-generational artisan families.
26 Years in the Making
Kearsley was founded in Sonoma in 2000 and launched with its first collections the following year, woven and finished in Lombardy by the same multigenerational families who had supplied Europe’s finest linen houses.
From the beginning, every piece was made to order, made by hand, and made to last.
Early collections expanded into handcrafted tableware produced in the Veneto region for private estates and restaurants, establishing a foundation rooted in material integrity and European craftsmanship.
In 2004, Kearsley opened a boutique in Chelsea, London. Couture and bespoke projects followed, including private residences, boutique hotels, and an international client base across Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.
The brand quickly gained international recognition, with early honors from Robb Report and invitations to exhibit at Maison et Objet and the Luxury and Yachts Show in Verona.
Over the following years, Heather Kearsley Wolf became a recognized authority in the field, invited to speak nationally and internationally on the specification, care, and understanding of fine linens. Kearsley became a trusted couture source for residential, hospitality, and marine projects of the highest level.
Kearsley collections have since appeared in private residences, boutique hotels, and aboard yachts and jets worldwide, and have been featured editorially in publications including British House & Garden
Italy and the Mills
Kearsley sources fabrics from a small, trusted network of Italian and European mills with whom we have maintained direct relationships for over two decades.
Our weaving partners include some of the most respected textile producers in Northern Italy, where fabrics are developed to our specifications in fiber, weave, weight, and finish before a single yard is cut.
Cutting, sewing, and finishing are carried out separately by our Lombardy ateliers, where multi-generational craftspeople produce linens for private estates and leading international hotels.
Every piece is hand-cut, sewn, and finished to our specifications.
Lead times reflect the nature of this work.
Sonoma Atelier
Kearsley’s atelier in Sonoma is where prototypes are developed, bespoke commissions are designed, and pieces are cut, sewn, and finished locally by skilled artisans, including Gail Wolf, who has been the hand behind Kearsley’s prototype work since the company’s founding.
For couture bed linens, the design process begins here. Fabric selections are made by hand. Measurements are taken at the property when required. Production is carried out either in Sonoma or in collaboration with our Lombardy partners, depending on the nature of the work.
Finished pieces are reviewed in Sonoma before delivery.
This is a craft business, built on relationships, knowledge, and an exacting standard of care.
Gail Wolf
Gail Wolf is the co-founder of Kearsley and the hands behind every prototype the company has ever produced.
Her textile heritage spans three generations. Her mother sewed for interior designers. Gail built her own couture dressmaking practice, developing a mastery of construction, fit, and finishing that has shaped every Kearsley collection.
Since the company’s founding, it has been her eye and her hands that translate design concepts into the sample pieces our Lombardy partners use to guide production.
Gail has long been known simply as “Mom” to Kearsley’s vendors and clients. At 85, she remains present at the atelier most days and is still the person Heather calls first when a construction question needs to be answered. She remains actively engaged in the life of the atelier, spending time with clients and continuing to build the relationships that define Kearsley.
Her understanding of how cloth behaves, how seams hold, and how finish determines longevity is not something that can be reduced to a specification. It is knowledge built over a lifetime.
Among the pieces she has made is a couture crib blanket commissioned for a future king.
Gail serves as a senior advisor to Kearsley, reflecting both her foundational role in the company and the depth of expertise she brings to every project.
Heather Kearsley Wolf
Heather Kearsley Wolf founded Kearsley in 2000, drawing on a family textile heritage spanning more than four centuries and a professional background in interior design, luxury sourcing, and international trade.
Her career began in commercial and residential interior design, specifying products for private estates, boutique hotels, and luxury hospitality properties. Sourcing directly for clients took her to factories in Italy, China, and Southeast Asia, where she developed a firsthand understanding of how luxury textiles are actually made: who makes them, under what conditions, and the gap between the finished product and the process behind it.
That knowledge became the foundation on which Kearsley was built.
Heather has been invited to speak nationally and internationally on the specification, care, and sourcing of fine linens. She has served on the CARE International Bay Area Committee and has represented Kearsley at Maison et Objet, the New York Home Textiles Show, and the Luxury and Yachts Show in Verona.
She lives and works in Sonoma, California.
Heather writes about textiles, interior design, craft, and the industry behind the cloth.