Sleep shop owner Alithea Lass of Serenity Sleep Center LLC, doing business as William Thomas Mattress Gallery, was so thrilled with a new collection from Atlanta-based Serta Simmons Bedding LLC that she commissioned a local artist to paint an enormous mural in its honor. “Together for a Clean Ocean” is a vibrant 28-foot-long underwater scene filled with colorful marine life.
The mural at the retailer’s Cottonwood, Arizona, store frames its Beautyrest Harmony Lux beds, a mattress collection first introduced at the Winter Las Vegas Market in January. The beds feature Seaqual ticking which incorporates polyester yarn spun from recycled ocean plastic.
The mural provides the perfect backdrop for the beds because “we were (so) excited about Beautyrest’s partnership with Seaqual to help save our bodies of water,” Lass said.
Local resident and artist John Alvey of Alvey Sign Co. painted the mural. He’s a scuba diving enthusiast with more than 30 hours of diving experience on both sides of the equator.
Alvey said he found particular joy in the commission because “painting the mural took me back underwater without actually being in the water.”
According to SSB, the ticking on one queen Harmony Lux mattress uses the equivalent of 50 recycled plastic water bottles retrieved from the oceans.
Seaqual mattress fabric was an Interzum award winner in 2019 when it was introduced by ticking major BekaertDeslee, with world headquarters in Waregem, Belgium. Seaqual also is the name of BekaertDeslee’s partner, a nonprofit dedicated to ocean cleanup based in Girona, Spain. Seaqual pays fishermen and women to haul marine garbage to shore where it is sorted and, in the case of PET plastics, reclaimed and spun into new polyester yarn.
