Madre Linen is a Portland-based home essentials brand featuring brightly colored and patterned napkins, tablecloths, and other domestic textiles. Founded in 2019 by native Portlander Shay Carillo, Madre was built upon the ethos that the creation of a beautiful and nourishing home can have positive ripple effects through families, local community, and the world writ large. The brand has grown exponentially over the past few years, embraced by the Portland community and moving steadily towards further expansion.
We met founder and owner Shay Carillo for a tour of the company’s space in North Portland.
Tell us a little bit about your company headquarters.
Carillo: This is the home of Madre Linen in North Portland. We just moved into this space in May of 2023. We use this as a place to store inventory, fulfill orders, and do design work. Prototyping is typically done in my home studio.
The whole space here is about 2,400 square feet, but Madre really operates out of only about a third of that. The rest of it we use as an event space that we rent out. We’ve hosted a lot of workshops, dinners, little markets, panels. I like to host things here that are connected to our ethos around food and rest and art.
How did the concept for Madre Linen first come about?
Carillo: I’m a deep lover of textiles and handcraft. Originally, I started a company called Non-Perishable Goods (NPG) in 2010 doing a lot of limited edition, one-of-a-kind pillows using textiles from all over the globe, which was beautiful and I loved it. But really what I learned inside of that business was what was scalable, what really had legs, and it was the linens. I knew I could build on that brand.
It started out as just napkins but I knew it could grow into more extended tabletop, kitchen, and bed products, potentially the whole home. So in 2019, my partner and I rebranded to Madre, and we pulled over the product from NPG. We had originally thought that we would be going direct to hospitality as our primary market, as historically that’s where we’ve had our best margins. But that direction was shot down pretty quickly in early 2020, thanks to the pandemic.
How did you wind up pivoting your business launch?
Carillo: It actually happened to be a really good timing to launch a specifically home-based brand. We were building on the work I had already done, so I had a decent following, but it really exploded. People really resonated with the brand, with the ethos, which is: we all eat, we all rest. If we aren’t eating and resting well, we can’t do the other big things we want to do with our lives. It’s a very political message for me and a very personal message, too.
What about your brand do you think particularly resonates with people?
Carillo: I think people are really excited about our color choices. Linen has grown in popularity a lot in the last several years, and I find that with our competitors, they lean toward more subdued palettes. In contrast, ours is pretty vibrant and a little bit, I would say, unexpected in our color combinations. And people appreciate that.
People also love the name. It’s called Madre because I woke up from a dream that it should be called Madre. Being a mother has been a deeply meaningful part of my life, and it still is. I feel such pride in being a mother, and I feel a lot of pride in being Mexican—hence the name!
What are the advantages of working with linen as your primary material?
Carillo: Linen is a bast fiber. Oregon, and specifically the Willamette Valley, were big producers of linen up through the early ’70s, and then all of the mills shut down. It’s really unfortunate because linen is a really beautiful interim crop to grow alongside of food. It sequesters carbon, it’s inherently pesticide- and herbicide-free. It doesn’t require those things to grow well, so it’s inherently organic.
When I was in the process of conceptualizing what Madre Linen could be, the question I was asking was: Can I create a fully domestic brand? I learned very quickly that no, no one’s producing linen to scale here in our country any longer. Two years ago, the North American Linen Alliance was formed. We are founding board members with that board, and it’s gaining a lot of traction. Maybe within the next 5 to 10 years we’ll have domestic mills starting to crop back up again, which is pretty exciting. At the moment, our linen is coming from Lithuania and Belgium. It was very important to me that we had a traceable supply chain and that our producers are Oeko-Tex certified.
“I am starting to really see how all the parts of my life weave together into this culmination. And that is, I think, really beautiful.”
—Shay Carillo, Owner, Madre Linen
How do you feel Madre Linen sits within the Portland consumer goods ecosystem?
Carillo: Because of our growth and where I’m trying to get Madre to be, I’d like to be playing with some much larger companies. I think we have so many great athletic and outdoor brands here, but not as many home-based brands that are of a substantial size. My goal is to create that opportunity for creative people here who maybe are a little more attracted to that product base.
It’s great to know that Madre is deeply loved by Portland, especially the indie community that is interested in small makers and brands. They really love Madre and are super supportive.
Have you worked with Prosper Portland at all in the process of growing your brand?
Carillo: Prosper has been really supportive. I was able to go to Shoppe Object this year, which was tremendous. These things that can feel a little bit out of reach as a small business owner. Prosper, for me, has just been a really encouraging partner in the community, especially as I’m a woman of color.
Do you have any advice for someone who is just starting out?
Carillo: I think starting small is always a good idea. Starting with what you’ve got. And I think trying a lot of things is always a good idea, too. Now, at almost half-a-century old, I am starting to really see how all the parts of my life weave together into this culmination. And that is, I think, really beautiful.
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