How Matteo's Luxury Bed Sheets Are Made in Los Angeles: From Fabric to Finished Product

Thirty Years of Making Sheets in the Same City

Most luxury bedding brands design in one place, source somewhere else, and manufacture wherever labor is cheapest. Matteo does something different — and has done it since 1996.

Founded by Matthew Lenoci in 1996, Matteo began with a simple idea: to awaken the spirit of American manufacturing by fashioning sewn textiles. What started as a single, clear intention has grown into something harder to replicate. That simple idea has evolved into a community of fifty craftspeople in Los Angeles, many partners worldwide, and a collection with over 30 core fabrics and 6,000 unique products.

The name itself is a small piece of that story. “Matteo” is the Italian version of Matthew. Founder Matthew Lenoci lived in Italy when he was younger, and the locals called him Matteo. The name carried inspiration and fond memories — his mother recommended it for the brand, and it stuck.

In 2026, the brand marks thirty years of manufacturing in Los Angeles. For those three decades, Matteo has manufactured luxury bedding, bath linens, and apparel in Los Angeles — products powered by the spirit of American manufacturing, the collective wisdom of centuries, and technology applied to give consumers their best nights of sleep.

It Starts Long Before the Sewing Machine

The question most people ask when they decide to buy luxury bedsheets online is: what actually makes one sheet better than another? The honest answer begins with fiber selection, not thread count marketing.

At Matteo, the mills are instructed to use only the finest extra-long staple combed cotton in the world. The quality of cotton is determined by the “staple” of the plant — the natural length of the fiber when picked. Longer staple means finer thread, and finer thread means a fabric that feels softer against skin and holds up longer through repeated washing. The most important factor in fine fabric is the quality of the cotton used in weaving. Finer cotton has longer plant fibers, or “staple.” With a longer staple, the diameter of the thread can be made smaller — and finer threads can be woven closer together for more threads per inch.

But sourcing the right fiber is only the beginning of the fabric development process. Matteo works hard, sometimes for years, to develop innovative fabrics with leading mills from all over the world, where the collective wisdom of generations is combined with technology. This is not a transactional supplier relationship. It is collaborative development — the kind that takes multiple seasons to yield a fabric worth putting the Matteo name on.

Matteo imports its fabrics from the finest suppliers all over the world and manufactures the finished products in LA. The global sourcing and local production model is deliberate: find the best raw material wherever it exists, then bring it home to be cut, sewn, and finished by people who know the brand’s standards from the inside out.

The Workshop on Cesar Chavez

Once fabric arrives in Los Angeles, the production process moves entirely in-house. Matteo sews right here in Los Angeles in a large workshop adjacent to the design studio. The constant circulation between design and production yields a fertile creative environment and unparalleled quality control.

That physical proximity matters more than it might seem. When the people cutting and sewing a sheet set work twenty feet from the people who designed it, problems get caught faster and standards stay consistent. A spec change doesn’t travel through email chains across time zones — it walks across the floor.

Designed. Cut. Sewn. Everything, under one roof. That phrase, used to describe the Los Angeles showroom and production space at 1000 E. Cesar Chavez Ave., is probably the most accurate summary of how Matteo operates. The design studio and the workshop are not separate departments in separate buildings. They are part of the same daily rhythm.

The entire team of craftspeople is part of the larger Los Angeles community as well as the global craft community that works hard to transform quality fibers into functional works of art and one-of-a-kind products.

What Garment-Washing Actually Does to a Sheet

One of the most distinctive steps in Matteo’s production process — and one that separates its sheets from most competitors — is garment-washing after sewing.

Every duvet cover, fitted sheet, sham, and pillowcase is made in small batches, garment-washed for softness, and finished with a refined hand feel. The garment-washing step happens after the product is fully constructed, not to the raw fabric before cutting. That sequence matters.

Garment washing adds extra softness to linens and removes the starches and chemicals that can make a fabric seem “crunchy” after the manufacturing process. It also creates a lived-in, breezy look and reduces shrinkage over time. The result is a sheet that arrives at your door already broken in — soft from the first night, not the twentieth.

For linen specifically, this process has particular value. Matteo’s linen flat sheets and fitted sheets are garment-dyed and washed for softness, making them even more forgiving over time. Linen’s natural flax fibers can feel structured initially, but garment-washing accelerates the relaxation of those fibers so the lived-in softness arrives sooner rather than later.

The small-batch approach reinforces the quality of this step. Washing large industrial runs uniformly is relatively straightforward. Washing small batches with attention to how each fabric responds — linen behaves differently from percale, sateen differently from vintage cotton — is the kind of process control that tends to get lost at scale.

The Fabric Range: What You’re Actually Choosing Between

Understanding Matteo’s production process also means understanding why the brand offers so many distinct fabrics rather than one or two “hero” products. Each fabric in the collection represents a different weave, fiber weight, and finishing approach.

The linen range includes Vintage Linen — made from 28-metric single yarn and washed for a soft, relaxed drape — alongside Cluny and Tat Linen as refined takes on traditional linen textures. The cotton percale range includes Nap at 225 thread count, Tru at 400 thread count, and Tat Cotton. The sateen range includes Sei at 600 thread count, Organic Sateen from certified organic cotton, and Washed Sateen at 300 thread count.

Vintage Linen is Matteo’s best-selling fabric, available in all Matteo colors. Linen is the fabric the brand has its roots in, and many customers maintain a loyalty to the textile as well. Percale cottons are the next best-selling fabrics — popular for their crisp, hotel-worthy look and durable weave.

The weave difference between percale and sateen is worth understanding before buying. Percale uses a traditional one-over-one basket weave, giving it a matte finish and crisp hand-feel — lightweight, breathable, and ideal for warmer climates or those who sleep hot. Sateen uses a three-over-one pattern, allowing more surface thread exposure and creating a smooth, luminous finish with a slightly heavier drape — well suited for cool sleepers.

For anyone shopping the luxury bedding collection online, the fabric guide at matteola.com walks through each textile in detail, including care instructions specific to each weave. The percale bedding collection and linen options each carry distinct characteristics worth matching to your climate and sleep preferences.

Why Making It in Los Angeles Is Still the Point

The “made in LA” story could easily be marketing shorthand. For Matteo, it is structural.

When design and production share the same address, quality control is not a department — it is a byproduct of daily proximity. A problem with a seam finish, a color inconsistency in a dye lot, a fit issue with a fitted sheet’s corner pocket: these get resolved in hours rather than weeks because the people who can fix them are on site.

Matteo uses extreme care and attention to detail in every step of the design and manufacturing process in order to ensure that each product lives up to the highest standards of quality, comfort, and style. That claim is easier to back up when design and production are physically integrated rather than separated by an ocean and a supply chain.

The brand’s dyeing approach reflects the same attention to longevity. Matteo dyes its fabrics using reactive dyes — and with care and appropriate washing rituals, Matteo colors will last a long time. VAT-dyed polyester threads are used for borders and trims, which are resistant to bleach and have far superior longevity to pigment and reactive dyes — because VAT dyes form a chemical bond with the fiber rather than a physical bond, which breaks down over time.

For shoppers weighing Matteo against other luxury bedding brands — Parachute, Frette, Sferra, or Society Limonta — the differentiating factor is probably this: Matteo is one of the few brands in the category that designs and manufactures in the same city, in the same building, with the same team. That is not a common arrangement in 2026, and it is not accidental.

The full range of sheet sets, duvet covers, and pillowcases is available online, and for those in Southern California, the showroom and outlet at 1000 E. Cesar Chavez Ave. in Los Angeles offers a direct look at the fabrics — and, on occasion, a peek at the production process itself.