KAILU is a luxury Chinese-American bedding brand, featuring silk-filled bedding collections with contemporary designs and natural materials that honor centuries of artisan expertise. Designed in San Francisco and proudly handmade in the Yangtze River Delta, China, KAILU’s home furnishings are filled with fluffy silk that is hand stretched by local artisans for an indulgent night’s sleep and long-lasting comfort.
Meaning “Open Road” in Mandarin, KAILU’s mission is to open the road for those who desire high-quality, meaningful goods that benefit others and themselves. KAILU works closely with artisans whose families have passed down the sericulture tradition for generations, and live in charming ancient water towns in the Yangtze River Delta (start of the maritime Silk Road and favorite silk region of Qing Dynasty emperors).
KAILU hopes to benefit the sleeping and waking lives of its customers and artisans. Its silk is created with thousand-year-old techniques — being farmed by mom-and-pop farmers who hand-feed their silkworms organic mulberry leaves, and processed with low-waste methods, drawing limestone-enriched waters from the delta rather than using fresh water. All tips, minus taxes, are given to the artisans to continue the handcraft and encourage younger generations to move back to the fading silk villages. Plus, any returns and retired samples are donated to the Compassionate Healing Foundation, which supports cancer patients with skincare, spa and beauty therapies to help lessen side effects — including hot flashes and hair loss — due to chemotherapy.
Founding Story
Snuggled between the top shelf and ceiling of founder LiLi Tan's San Francisco closet is what started this journey. The outside is a white jacquard fabric decorated with what can only be described as ocean waves juxtaposed with sheep. (Yes, as in the baa baa variety.) And beneath the fabric is hand-stretched raw silk.
Tan bought her first silk-filled blanket during her first trip to China in 2008. She was 28 years old and working as an associate features editor at ELLE, when the magazine sent her to Beijing to write a story about the Olympics. During a sightseeing stop at Heng Yuan Xiang, a home goods brand founded in 1927, she watched as four women stood around a table for hours, tugging,
coaxing, and lengthening small pieces of raw silk into thin layers of fine filament that spanned the size of a bed. She was mesmerized. This was unlike any factory or anything, really, she had ever seen.
For the next 10 years, as she moved from New York to Beijing, to Hong Kong, and then to various U.S. cities working as a journalist, she brought that comforter with her, without ever giving a thought to turning it into a business. In 2018, she founded KAILU after an awful night’s sleep at a friend’s place in Los Angeles, under a synthetic comforter that made her wake up multiple times in a sweat. “Why don’t you have silk-filled blankets?” she asked, crankily. “Where can I get one?” her friend replied.
Tan began to look for silk-filled bedding in the United States, but when she did find the rare item, it was hard to determine where the silk was farmed, and the designs were more traditional. She also learned about the struggling silk villages of Yangtze River Delta (once the beginning of the maritime Silk Road and the favorite silk region of the Qing Dynasty emperors), which, in recent years, have been practically abandoned as younger generations left to work in megafactories to make cheap goods. She realized she needed to open the road between time-honored Chinese materials and western aesthetics, and saw the need for better representation and high-quality heritage products, to create a brand Asian-Americans could be proud of.
Starting KAILU was also a way for her to connect with her culture, though, for much of her born-and-raised-in-Wisconsin life, she was only able to participate from afar. It came as language, food, and duty. But this way, she could learn more about her heritage through artisan stories, raising the profile of high-quality Chinese handcrafts, and working to support and revitalize these charming silk villages.
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Features
Dual-Core Design
The KAILU Heritage Silk Duvet features a single core or a dual core, allowing customers to purchase their ideal weight and easily customize their duvets for warmer or cooler months. Insert one raw silk core for summer and two for winter.
Single Core Duvet
Single Core Duvet
A wonderful weight without the overheating, our single core duvets are ideal for warmer climates and for those who sleep on the warmer side.
Includes: 1 raw silk core + 1 duvet cover
Total weight: 7 to 11 lb., depending on size
Profile: Minimal
Dual Core Duvet
Dual Core Duvet
Our dual core duvets are easily customizable for all four seasons: Insert one raw silk core for summer and two for winter.
Includes: 2 raw silk cores + 1 duvet cover
Total weight: 12 to 17 lb., depending on size
Profile: Fluffy
Raw Silk
Up close, KAILU silk is simply "unreel." It's left raw, instead of being reeled and woven into fabric. Local women meticulously hand stretch the mulberry silk cocoons into layers of soft, fluffy raw silk.
Allergy Resistant
Mulberry silk is naturally hypoallergenic, resistant to dust mites, and humidity controlling. Silk contains a natural protein called Sericin, which many researchers say reduces the possibility of allergic reactions and discourages microbial growth.
Mulberry, The Finest Silk
Our duvets each contain approximately 10,000 ivory cocoons. Local silk farmers hand-feed their silkworms a strict diet of organic mulberry leaves to create naturally ivory, long-strand and the finest mulberry silk in the world.
Durability
Silk will last 20+ years if cared for. "The ultra-strong fibers outperform the mechanical characteristics of many synthetic materials as well as steel," says Dr. Augustine Urbas, researcher at Wright-Patterson AFB, who is using silk to develop bulletproof vests and parachute textiles.
Thermoregulation
According to Air Force Researchers: "Silk exhibits passive radiative cooling, meaning that it radiates more heat than it absorbs when in direct sunlight. On hot summer days, silk drops 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit when compared to reflective materials." (source: Wright-Patterson AFB)
LiLi Tan is a 2x Emmy-award winning journalist who discovered the struggling silk towns of the Yangtze River Delta during her time in China, starting from the 2008 Olympics. She was formerly a field reporter for NBC Bay Area and a magazine editor at ELLE, Tatler, and People StyleWatch, where she tested and reviewed many luxury products. She now lives near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park with her mini goldendoodle Marty (who only sleeps on silk).
A set above the rest: The raw silk cores are dust mite–resistant, which is great for the allergy-prone.
Nicole Moshfegh, PsyD
Women's Health Expert, Clinical Psychologist
Hands Down the most comfortable comforter. A lot of detail has gone into creating this product. Even the packaging is something you will want to hold on to. You can use it to store comforter or if you go with the dual core option, you can store one of the cores during the summer months when you don’t need two. I have been sleeping on my Kailu comforter for over two months now and I am extremely happy with it. If you have never slept with a silk comforter, the first thing you will notice is that it hugs your body. There are no dead spaces that you may find with a down comforter. This makes silk comforters extra cozy and provides a consistent temperature throughout the night. Additionally, the silk doesn’t make me too hot or too cold. I have been using a single layer all summer. I may add the second core this winter but being in San Diego right now, our house doesn’t really get that cold. The comforter has 8 ties to secure the duvet cover. Most comforters I receive only have 4, or one for each corner. The extra ties in the middle of the comforter ensure that the comforter lays evenly across your bed on won’t get scrunched up overnight. It’s a small but important detail that that makes for a neater bed. If you have a king size bed, I strongly recommend going with the emperor size.
I like having the duvet drape over my bed and it keeps me and my wife from fighting over the bedding.
Quality silk comforters are hard to come by and you definitely get what you pay for here. You get more silk and an included duvet cover. I have done a lot of traveling this past summer and it has been so nice to come home to a bed with this type of bedding. Once you go silk, it will be hard to go back to any other textile.
Ben Trapskin
Sleep Expert, Owner of Yawnder (f.k.a. Sleep Sherpa)
It’s truly luxurious. I didn’t realize the wellness benefits of sleeping under raw silk until I learned more about Kailu. Plus, it’s breathable, too! If you’re a warm sleeper like Sean, I definitely recommend this duvet.
Ok, this is the absolute most genius feature of the Heritage Silk duvet: if you opt for the dual core, you basically get 2 comforters! The duvet is all-season and designed to be flexible based on your needs. Basically, you can choose a dual core and customize from there. We used it all winter long in the cabin (especially when we didn’t have power!) and it was so perfect. I love having the flexibility — especially now that we live in an area with more drastic seasonal shifts.
I’m someone who is extremely picky about their bedding… to the point where I actually use linen sheets on our van’s bed when we go camping. So you can imagine how much importance I put on a good duvet insert… and I can say with confidence that the Heritage Silk duvet is the best that money can buy.
I will say, it’s absolutely an investment. But when you think about how important a good night’s sleep is… well, that is reason enough in my book. Because the duvet we got is queen sized, we can’t use it on our new king size bed and I literally miss it! Our guests are veryyyy lucky.
Joanna Hawley (a.k.a. Jojotastic)
Home & Lifestyle Influencer
A silky-soft, and luxurious blanket perfect for those on the go. A three-piece collection of raw silk travel essentials that includes: a portable throw blanket, and a linen drawstring carrying pouch. For a limited time, the set also includes a mulberry silk eye mask. Like our Heritage Duvet, the Open Road portable throw is filled with hand-stretched raw silk and includes a removable, washable cover that comes in white or two-tone (white on one side and a vintage 1950s Shanghai peony-and-bird pattern printed on vibrant emerald linen on the other side). A wonderfully lightweight and cozy accessory when curling up for a quick nap on a long flight, or relaxing at your gate before catching a flight!
Jordan Lopez
Lifney Expert
I am obsessed with this comforter. It’s hard to get out of bed because of how much I love it.
Dr. Sarah Humphreys, DMD
Sleep Medicine Dentist
After buying this, I'm never using another comforter ever again! The single core is enough to keep me cozy in the winter months. However, it’s also perfect to snuggle in and not feel hot and uncomfortable during the summer months. I’ve bought one for my mother and sister and they absolutely love it as well.
Neha Tandon
Commerce Editor, Women's Health
It’s amazing how much better sleep can be with a few tweaks. This is important for parents who are always pulled in too many directions. Kailu’s Open Road Portable Throw is a gorgeous way to help parents make the most of the time have to sleep and relax. The silk eye mask helps parents stay asleep even after the sun rises — or after a neighbor shines headlights into the room. The set’s throw is made from soft raw silk and is the prefect accessory to bring to bed or to use lounging on the couch.
