Places I Desperately Want to Nap, as a Design (and Sleep) Obsessed Creative Director
A nap wish list from someone who thinks about sleep and design way too much
I’ve been known to fall asleep at unexpected times and in very questionable places. You can ask my wife. She has a decade’s worth of photo evidence in her camera roll. Thanks, boo. I’ve passed out mid-dinner (still not sure why people insist on 8pm reservations), during the opening scenes of Broadway shows (and I’m a theater kid) and on every single road trip we’ve ever taken (proud passenger princess here).
These naps aren’t cute. They aren’t cozy, aren’t even comfortable. They are out of survival.
But look, I just turned 35, and I think it’s time my naps got an upgrade. I’ve been thinking about the intentional nap lately. The aspirational kind, maybe it feels a little bit luxurious. And since I am sitting at the very niche intersection of design (I run a gallery) and sleep (Creative Director at Loftie), I feel like I’m allowed to have strong opinions on the design-to-nap pipeline.
So here it is. My highly specific wish list of places I desperately want to nap.
1. Between Us: Tête-à-Tête
by Christopher Kurtz, in collaboration with Dana Barnes
Sarah Myerscough Gallery’s “Dreamscapes,” Design Miami 2024
I saw this hammock of my dreams at Design Miami this year as part of Sarah Myerscough’s Dreamscapes exhibition, which explored the bedroom as a space for ritual and restoration. This piece felt like the anchor.
It’s a carved basswood form with handmade rope woven between its curved arms. Somewhere between a hammock and a suspended bench. It’s the adult version of the hammock I grew up loving. Just this, a breeze, and thirty quiet minutes please.
2. Ethereal Bed
by Marc Fish
Also part of Sarah Myerscough Gallery’s “Dreamscapes,” Design Miami 2024
The headboard and base are sculpted sycamore, curved into soft waves, with everything wrapped in silk.
It was shown as a response to how beds have become multi-use zones. We eat, text, cry, and recover in them. It made me want to nap not because I was tired, but because it looked like a space built for restoration.
3. Textile Work by Grace Atkinson
Somehow I ended up on TextileTok (as one does) and found Grace Atkinson’s work. She’s a New Zealand-born artist based in Paris, and this pillow moment stopped me.
It’s made using a centuries-old technique from the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine. The wool is hand-woven, felted in mountain river water, sun-dried, and brushed until the surface is soft and textured.
The scale and texture feel like it was made for napping. Maybe not on a bed, but in a corner of the floor, near an open window. I pictured myself there with Stefan, my fifteen-year-old Yorkie (my child), on a Saturday afternoon.
4. Venus Bed
by Sasha Bikoff x John Pomp Studio
Kips Bay Decorator Show House 2023
This is napping for maximalists.
The bed is shaped like a clamshell and made of iridescent vinyl. The room had wallpapered ceilings, pink vegan-fur rugs, and full Y2K glam. It was part of Bikoff’s Flights of Fantasy bedroom on the Upper West Side.
Not my usual style, but so over-the-top I kind of loved it. If you’re going to nap in the middle of the day, why not do it in a shell.
5. Laila Gohar for Marimekko
Milan Design Week 2025
Marimekko debuted a capsule with Laila Gohar called All the Things We Do in Bed. It wasn’t just about sleep. It was about the other sixteen hours we spend there—eating, journaling, scrolling, thinking, resting.
It reminded me that naps don’t need to happen in silence. Sometimes your nap zone is also your snack zone. This collection felt like it was made for real life.
6. Outside
Shot during a Loftie campaign in the American Southwest
This one isn’t a product. It’s a place.
Growing up in the country, I always loved sleeping outside. But desert naps hit different. During a Loftie campaign with photographer Kelly Brown, we shot at her home in Joshua Tree. The air, the quiet, the smell of creosote at sunset. That photoshoot actually inspired some of the sunset colors on the Loftie Lamp.
Nature wins.
I’ve napped in some questionable places. Bathroom benches. Storage closets. A restaurant booth in Miami where I asked the waiter for a napkin to use as a pillow. But mid-thirties me is dreaming of naps in spaces that feel beautiful, intentional, and just a little indulgent. - Lin