Founded in 2017 by Hayley and Andy Worley, Sheet Society has become one of Australia’s fastest-growing bedding brands. Now, the company is entering its next chapter with a national retail rollout – and giving ‘room service’ a new meaning.
When Hayley and Andy Worley moved into their home in 2017, they expected the excitement of setting up a bedroom to be matched by a seamless shopping experience. Instead, shopping for bedding felt a little bleak. “What should’ve been a fun, simple purchase ended up feeling confusing, outdated, and a bit uninspiring,” Hayley says. “Everything looked the same, I couldn’t touch and feel what I was buying, and the shopping experience overall just felt like it hadn’t evolved in decades.”
With Hayley’s background in fashion and Andy’s in FMCG, the Worleys knocked heads to reimagine bedding – not just from a look-and-feel standpoint, but as a brand shoppers could connect with. Her early vision was for the shopping experience of bedding to be just like it is for clothes – mixing and matching colours and fabrics to create something personalised.
They landed on Sheet Society, a modern bedding brand that today sells one sheet every three minutes, employs 60 full-time staff, and has four stores across Australia, with a fifth opening at Doncaster in Melbourne in early March. “Everything from day one has been about making the bed easier and more enjoyable,” Hayley says.
“I really underestimated the amount of money a business needed to just keep going, to build a stock holding and to invest in new categories before the curve.”
Hayley Worley, co-founder, Sheet Society
Bedding might be a crowded category now (think: Hommey, Bed Threads, I Love Linen), but Worley says Sheet Society was the first-mover, which came with a slew of advantages – and a few challenges.
“Honestly when we launched there really were no other bedding brands like ours. We really were the first ones selling as separates, so that required educating our customers on why they’re not seeing ‘sheet sets’ on our website.”
Even after educating their customer, Hayley had the challenge of discoverability. Sheet Society had launched post-Instagram boom, so it was tricky to grow an organic following. “It was the hardest part,” she recalls.
But momentum came quickly enough that Sheet Society was never really a side hustle. Hayley worked Sheet Society on the side for just two months, before quitting her full-time job and going all in. Her husband joined full-time two years later, when Hayley fell pregnant with their son. But while they grew fast, they needed capital faster.
“In the early days we couldn’t afford to buy enough stock to realise the sales potential, so [we didn’t realise this could scale into a national brand] until a few years in,” she says. “I really underestimated the amount of money a business needed to just keep going, to build a stock holding and to invest in new categories before the curve.”
Fast-forward to today and the brand has clocked triple-figure digital growth year-on-year. Now, the Worleys say the next frontier is physical retail: “We know customers want to touch, try and feel products and that bedding purchases predominantly happen instore,” Hayley says. “It felt really important to give our customers the opportunity to shop how they like.”
With an ‘Open Home’ concept, their stores intentionally blur the line between retail and home. Teams are trained as stylists rather than sales staff, and customers are encouraged to build beds using tactile tools, swatches and one-on-one appointments. “When customers can shop online anytime… we also know that the in-store experience is key,” Hayley says. “This is where our Room Service experience comes in as well as ensuring our teams in store are more like stylists than typical retail staff.”
This philosophy anchors their newest store, an immersive space at Burnside Village in Adelaide where the store is designed to mimic a lived-in home rather than a product-led showroom. “We wanted to create a space that feels alive and inviting, where people feel welcome to linger, explore, and connect with our brand,” Hayley says. “I want customers to be able to imagine our products in their home, rather than feel like they’re in a retail store.”
Kitted out with Sheet Society’s real-life version of its digital Bed Builder tool, which allows customers to mix-and-match fabrics and colours and build their bedding sets, the Burnside store is the first of its kind for the company, but there’s more on the way. In its opening weekend, the store saw over 700 customers walk through its doors and beat its target by 96%.
“I genuinely believe if we just focus on the customer, the rest will follow,” she says. “With this new physical retail strategy we need to have faith in just focusing on offering a great experience and that being the main success metric.”
“I wore busy like a badge of honour and, like many of us, hit a rough patch of burnout.”
Hayley Worley, co-founder, Sheet Society
As the brand expands nationally, its product universe is broadening too. Sheet Society now plays in quilts, pillows, towels, sleepwear and is set to launch a suite of apparel designed for the “in-between hours” called Resting. That idea was born from Hayley’s own experience with ‘hustle culture’.
“I spent years building Sheet Society through a pandemic while raising three little kids in the height of hustle culture. I wore busy like a badge of honour and, like many of us, hit a rough patch of burnout in the post–‘girl boss’ era,” she says.
“In the process of finding my way back, I realised something big: ideas, inspiration and progress don’t always come from constant motion. Rest is a crucial part of growth and evolution. When it came to resting, my options were either pyjamas, activewear (when I had zero intention of being active) or sweats. I wanted something intentional and fashionable that was also functional. The point isn’t to take off your day clothes, just to put them back on tomorrow. It’s to get dressed for the in-between hours with purpose and intention — because resting is worth dressing for.”
They also recently partnered with Steph Claire Smith and Laura Henshaw’s KIC on Rest Club, which is an in-app offering at KIC that helps users find good sleep habits. That was a big driver behind Sheet Society’s foray into Australian-made sleep products under their Sleep Well range, which are formulated, Hayley says, to promote healthy sleep.
“We are currently engineering a cooling fabric which will launch just in time for Aussie Summer, and have more sleep focused products in the pipeline,” she says. Looking ahead, Worley says the company’s mission isn’t just to sell sheets, but to be a brand that cares about what its products do.
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