Inside Snowe’s Takeover of the Millennial Luxury Home Goods Market
White sheets. White dishes. White towels. Back in 2015, who knew the world of everyday housewares needed disruption? Andres Modak and Rachel Cohen did. That year the New York-based millennial couple launched Snowe, their brand specializing in well-priced, elevated basics—everything from 500-thread-count Italian percale sheets to plates that look simple but are made of luxurious French Limoges porcelain. The company quickly became a darling of everyone from consumer product sites, who gave their sheets rave reviews, and Hollywood actors and fashion designers who put in whole-house orders for Snowe’s every-expanding product line.
Today, Snowe is no longer an upstart disrupter. It’s the company’s fourth birthday and to celebrate Modak and Cohen are offering a rare discount—15% off all orders over $250 until June 23. They recently dished to ELLEDecor.com on their formula for success, their new store in the Hamptons, and what’s next for a brand that has quickly become a major design player.
ELLE Decor: Snowe turns four today! What's it like seeing your baby grow into its Pre-K phase?
Rachel Cohen: Snowe is very much still in its toddler phase, but it is growing so fast, it’s hard to keep up. Like watching a baby grow, it never gets old. We’ve created game-changing products and we now have two full-time stores (in New York’s Flatiron district and Southampton, NY). From the start, it was critical for us to build a destination for the home, with an array of products across the whole home, and not just be a direct-to-consumer bedding or tabletop brand.
ED: What's your bestseller?
Andres Modak: Our Italian-crafted percale sheets have completely blown up. At times, it’s been tough to keep up with customer demand, and we’ve actually sold out and had waitlists in the thousands of customers. As we’ve grown, we’ve been able to grow our infrastructure to meet this.
Our dinnerware is one of largest sellers as well. Being able to offer ultra-fine, ultra-resilient Limoges porcelain at the price point we do has driven a ton of demand from a wide-range of customers, as well as numerous celebrities. We also created a unique, lightweight terry towel that uses Japanese air-weaving technology to trap the threads with air to make them insanely absorbent and quick-drying, and they are super soft and fluffy. Our customers just can’t get enough.
ED: What inspired the name Snowe?
AM: We knew from the get-go that we wanted to create a simplified palette of neutrals. It’s what we personally gravitated towards, it’s what our target customer wanted, and during the early days of market research, it’s what drove the majority of sales. There’s no question—white is our most popular color. As for the name Snowe, we chose it because we wanted a name we could own. The “e” at the end makes it a proper noun. But yes, the underlying associations with snow—the tranquility, the softness, the blank canvas—were top of mind when we chose the name.
ED: Your "Aha" moment, per your website, was when you were setting up your first home together and couldn't find household "essentials worth waking up to." Why not?
RC: It’s true. We were completely uninspired by what the market offered. You’d walk into the big-box retailers and everything felt disposable, with its mediocre quality and plastic-wrapped packaging. Products were stacked to the ceiling and it felt like the walls were closing in on you. Online was no different: I’d have 40+ tabs open only to crash my browser. The luxury brands and department stores were just too pricey and in many cases it felt like the quality didn’t warrant the price. Catalogs felt sterile and devoid of humanity (and reality). Where was the beautiful imperfection of everyday life? Why couldn’t we be both aspirational and playful or fun?
We knew that if we set out to solve this, we’d have to convince factories with a heritage of supplying luxury houses to rethink the market. We’d need to create a simplified assortment and experience that made things easy. We’d also need to develop a brand that excited people about setting up their home, instead of feeling like a chore. We wanted to show that you could create a beautiful, inspiring home and have fun while doing it.
ED: How did you two meet?
AM: We met in graduate school at Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania, where we were both doing our MBAs. We had numerous close friends in common and got together in our second year. It wasn’t until we moved together to New York City after we graduated that we contemplated building a business together.
ED: Did you have a background in design?
RC: Actually Andres did. His mother, Monica Echavarría Modak, is a super talented architect, interior designer, and furniture designer with truly exceptional taste. Andres grew up with these influences and a natural inclination for design. I personally did not, but during my years working in real estate and hospitality, I developed a love for interiors. I found myself finding more and more ways to be involved in the little details that make a physical space more inviting and inspiring.
ED: You are millennials. Are you your target market?
AM: We didn’t set out to build a brand for millennials, it was more about appealing to a next-generation mindset. One that is digitally-savvy, excited by a disruptive brand, and understands that things don’t need to be the way they’ve always been. Many of our customers are millennials, but we actually have a very broad customer base. Today’s customers, irrespective of age, remain true to the brands they connect with, and this guides everything we do every day.
ED: The website also notes you like to throw "epic dinner parties." Describe the most epic dinner party you've ever hosted.
RC: We do love hosting a good dinner party! Andres is the culinary talent behind the meal, and man, can he cook! My talents are better suited to designing table settings. Some of our most ‘epic’ dinner parties occur when we host one of our supper clubs. We invite several of our closest, but also most foodie and oenophilic friends. One of our recent dinner parties went on for eight hours! I designed a table setting using spring flowers from the Union Square farmers market paired with (obviously) our Snowe dinnerware, flatware, glassware, and linens. Andres prepared a five-course menu that took inspiration from our travels. The highlights were an Italian-inspired scallop crudo with Meyer lemon and ramp oil, a deconstructed paella with soft-shell crab and chorizo and a Turkish homemade manti-ravioli hybrid with labne, mint, and brown butter. Each course was paired with unique sakes and wines we picked out. After dinner, we moved things over to the lounge, where we had dessert sitting on the floor and among the poufs. A guitar came out and so did a few bottles of port and amaro. Needless to say, things went on quite late into the night.
ED: At your new Hamptons shop, you offer help with "guest room zhushes," among other things. What are some of your top summer zhushes?
AM: It’s the little things that make all the difference. A carafe and glass by the bedside (maybe with mint and lemon included), a candle burning in the room to appeal to both relaxation and memory, a couple of good books or magazines for bedtime reading, a throw draped over a chair in case things get chilly. To create a spa-like bath space, pair local flowers or dried grasses with one of our summer scents like Rinse & Repeat or Speak Easy. And it’s the cushy embrace of the towels and robes that’ll make all the difference. Stock our classic air-woven towels and bathrobes for that luxe hotel feel. Or if you want something a little lighter and organic feeling but equally absorbent, go with our honeycomb collection.
ED: Which of your products was the toughest to get right, and why?
RC: Honestly, in each of our products, we look for ways to improve the status-quo and create the platonic ideal of each. We look at materials and technology that make luxury practical. We set a high bar and getting there inevitably means countless hours and sleepless nights. That said, the years we spent working on our linen bedding were the most arduous. We couldn’t get on board with the rough scratchiness that even super-luxe linen has, and did not want to ask our customers to be patient through the hundreds of washes it often takes to soften it. Some companies use chemicals to get that soft effect, but we did not want to do that. So we worked with our partner manufacturer in Italy to develop a unique process that beats the high-grade Belgian flax linen with gusts of air, mimicking the effect of line-drying linen over hundreds of washes. Imagine an Italian Nonna hanging up her heirloom linen sheets for decades in the Italian countryside—that was our inspiration. The good news is we achieved it! It’s all I want to sleep on these days.
ED: What's your own home like, and how much of it is from Snowe?
AM: Our home is The Whitespace—which was actually our first, appointment-only, in-person retail experiment, where customers could come and shop our home and be inspired by the space and our curated picks beyond our own products. We still host events and activations at The Whitespace. We collaborated with a range of talented friends to make the pieces that are showcased there. We curated pieces from brands like Menu, GAN, Allied Maker, Bertazzoni, Osloform, ELTE, TRNK, and selected art curated by Uprise Art and photography by Claudia Uribe. There are also a wide range of one-of-a-kind pieces, including furniture designed by my mother and crafted in Indonesia, and many others we found during our travels.
ED: We're living in a maximalist moment, yet Snowe is decidedly minimal. Ever think about changing things up?
RC: We actually don’t consider ourselves to be true minimalists. While we personally lean toward modern and uncluttered, we’ve designed Snowe to be the perfect foundation for any aesthetic. We’ve seen our tableware paired with everything from rustic cane to brightly colored glass chargers. We’ve seen Snowe sheets on beds that range from minimalist modern to mid-century or colorful and patterned. It’s all about layering while investing in the pieces that matter most to you. Does that mean we won’t try out-of-the-box things down to road? Absolutely not. You’ll just have to wait and see.
ED: What's next for Snowe and for the two of you?
AM: We will continue to create the perfect home essentials for every moment and milestone. We cover a lot right now, but the opportunities for expansion are endless. We’ll be expanding into new categories, opening new store experiences, and innovating in the ways products are made and in how our customers shop for their homes and look for design guidance and inspiration. Look out for a lot of exciting things from Snowe in the months and years to come.
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