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pillowslayer, home

About

We make one pillow, very carefully.

STRATA Sleep Sciences began with three pillows on a bedroom floor in 2019. It now occupies a linen mill.

PILLOWSLAYER is the home of STRATA, the 100-layer pillow. We are 64 people and one cat, in a former linen mill in Pellham Ford. We cut, cure, felt, quilt and stitch every layer ourselves, and we leave eight of them carefully empty.

Our Institute is funded entirely by us, which it describes as a conflict of interest we have chosen to be open about.¹

Ines Wrenfield’s story in text over a growing stack of layers, with a prototype tally that runs 24, 48, 64, 128, 99 and settles on 100.

Ines Wrenfield, in forty seconds.

The founder

I couldn’t sleep. So I added a layer.

In the spring of 2019, Ines Wrenfield was an acoustic-foam engineer with nine pillows and a neck that disagreed with all of them. She spent her days designing foam panels that absorbed sound in concert halls. She spent her nights awake.

One night she stacked three pillows. It was too tall. She removed the middle one. Too short. She put it back, removed the top one, and found herself at two in the morning surrounded by pillows and one clear thought: a pillow is not one thing. It is layers, glued together and sold as one thing.

If a pillow is layers, then the right pillow is the right number of layers. The next morning she began cutting foam into thin sheets on her kitchen table. Within a month she had rented a converted bakery in Pellham Ford and was curing 24-layer prototypes in its old bread oven.

It took three years, 3,000 interviews and one long weekend at 99 layers to arrive at STRATA. Ines still sleeps on one every night. Her Number is 48.

I spent ten years making foam that absorbs sound. Then I spent three years making foam that absorbs doubt.

Ines Wrenfield, Founder
Ines Wrenfield, the founder, holds a single thin layer up to the light in her workshop.
Ines Wrenfield · № 48

Timeline

Seven years, in order.

2019 to 2026. Nothing has been left out.

  1. 2019

    Three pillows on a floor

    Ines Wrenfield stacks three pillows, removes one, and realises a pillow is layers. The first 24-layer prototype is cured in a converted bakery in Pellham Ford.

  2. 2020

    The Neck Census

    Over fourteen months, we interview 3,000 sleepers about their necks. We build a 128-layer prototype, then spend a long weekend convinced the answer is 99. It is not.

  3. 2021

    The Old Linen Mill

    We move into a former linen mill and found the STRATA Sleep Sciences Institute in its north wing. The Triple Quiet Rule is written down. The STRATA-11 study begins.

  4. 2022

    STRATA launches

    The 100-layer pillow ships in its first numbered crates. Later that year, we silence Layer 33. Within a month, 312 sleepers ask for the squeak back. We restore it.

  5. 2023

    LOFT-3 and The Golden Zipper

    LOFT-3 finds a 41.7% improvement in cervical alignment at each sleeper’s Number. Our three-sided zipper wins The Golden Zipper. Lattice the cat joins the mill.

  6. 2024

    VOID-1

    Our randomised trial of the Void Layer™ finds an 18.2% greater sense of space. The Void Layer wins The Aldous Prize for Restraint. We certify our 10,000th Number.

  7. 2025

    Pro and Twin

    STRATA Pro adds twenty Reserve Layers for sleepers who drift. STRATA Twin brings two pillows and one Number to households that have discussed it in daylight. We receive The Night-Tested Seal.

  8. 2026

    Best in Loft

    Loft Quarterly names STRATA Best in Loft 2026. Layer 47 becomes available on its own. 28,114 sleepers have now found their Number.

Team

The people behind the stack.

Eight of the 64 people who make STRATA, with their Numbers.

  • Ines Wrenfield, the founder, holds a single thin layer up to the light in her workshop.

    Ines Wrenfield

    Founder and Chief Layer Officer

    A former acoustic-foam engineer who stacked three pillows one night in 2019 and has been removing layers ever since.

  • Dr. Halcyon Reyes-Whitlock holds a single pillow layer up to the light.

    Dr. Halcyon Reyes-Whitlock

    Director, STRATA Sleep Sciences Institute

    Leads the Institute’s research programme and the STRATA-11 study. The first person to say that 99 felt unfinished.

  • Margit Oduya, Head of Number Integrity, examines a cloth-bound journal.

    Margit Oduya

    Head of Number Integrity

    Reviews every Twin order, every Number of 100, and every Layer 47 before it ships. Has never certified a Number she did not believe.

  • Lorcan Abernethy-Sato, Head of Layer Pairing, holds two layers side by side as if comparing wines.

    Lorcan Abernethy-Sato

    Head of Layer Pairing

    Composes the Sommelier stack and writes its tasting notes. Defends Layer 33 in writing, and in person if asked.

  • Pell Durrant, Head of Void Operations, holds an empty linen frame up to a window.

    Pell Durrant

    Head of Void Operations

    Runs the sparse room where Void Layers are made, and inspects each one at the north window for exactly nine seconds.

  • Agatha Rennick, Mill Foreman, stands in overalls beside a roll of wool felt.

    Agatha Rennick

    Mill Foreman

    Has run the mill floor since 2021. Believes Tuesday is not a good day for placebos. Is usually right about these things.

  • Odile Fairweather, Editor, sits at a desk stacked with proofs holding a green fountain pen.

    Odile Fairweather

    Editor, The Layer Letter

    Edits the Journal and writes the Layer Letter every Thursday. Her Number ends on the layer that squeaks, and she would like that known.

  • Tobias Mbeki-Hale, Head of Sleeper Care, smiles in rolled shirt sleeves and a headset holding a plain box.

    Tobias Mbeki-Hale

    Head of Sleeper Care

    Answers every letter within one business day, including the ones addressed to Layer 33, which he reads but does not answer.

  • Lattice, the studio cat, asleep on a stack of eleven removed wool layers.

    Lattice

    Studio Cat

    Sleeps on a stack of eleven removed layers, mostly wool. Has never been through the Protocol, but seems certain.

Values

What we believe.

  1. № 1Principle

    Subtract until it’s right.

    Every STRATA arrives with more than you need, so you can find out exactly what you do need.

  2. № 2Principle

    Your neck already knows.

    We do not choose your Number. We give you a way to hear it.

  3. № 3Principle

    Measure, then believe.

    Every claim on this website comes from a study, a Journal or a ruler. Usually all three.

  4. № 4Principle

    Nothing is a material.

    Eight of our layers are empty, on purpose. Leaving room is part of the work.

  5. № 5Principle

    Keep the squeak.

    Not every imperfection is a flaw. Some are the sound of something doing its job.

Photo essay

Our Lab.

A short photo-essay from the Old Linen Mill.

A long pouring table where pale foam sheets cure under soft light.
№ 1Line 2Gen VII memory foam is poured, cured for 72 hours and cut to 2.8 mm. Layer 47 is inspected here, and again upstairs.
A latex production line with a single pale sheet lifted at one corner.
№ 2Line 4Reactive Latex is whipped and flash-set. This is where Layer 33 learned to squeak. We have stopped asking how.
Hands needle-felting a thin wool sheet on a wooden bench.
№ 3The Felting RoomWool felt arrives from Northmere and is finished here by hand, then aerated, 220 micro-channels to the square centimetre. The room smells faintly of rain.
A sparse room with a single chair and an empty linen frame on the table.
№ 4The Void RoomA chair, a table, a lamp and a window. Void Layers are stitched here, in deliberate quiet. There used to be a clock.
A row of neatly made beds under low lamps in a quiet sleep laboratory.
№ 5The Sleep LaboratoryFourteen beds, a pressure-mapping suite and technicians in soft-soled shoes. LOFT-3 was run here, one layer at a time.
A pine crate with layers fanned inside, packed by hand, beside linen-wrapped boxes.
№ 6PackingEvery crate is packed by hand, in order, and sealed with a numbered strip. Every crate is opened once.