Two co-founders, a 2019 start and a plan to keep furniture in use.

Sabai is an American direct-to-consumer furniture brand that sells sofas, sectionals, sleepers, chairs and ottomans through its own website, sabai.design. Modern Retail, in an article by Melissa Daniels published on 4 September 2025, named its co-founders as Phantila Phataraprasit, who is also chief executive, and Caitlin Ellen, and said the two had started the company in 2019. The same article named Jess Fügler as Sabai’s product lead and designer.

From the start, Sabai has framed itself around materials and the life of a piece after it leaves the factory. Modern Retail reported that the company began with a line of sofas, sectionals and ottomans and described the materials it uses: a recycled velvet made from old plastic water bottles, an upcycled polyester and natural materials, with sleeper sofas described as plastic-free and as one of the brand’s hero products. Some of those materials come from abroad: the article said Sabai’s cactus leather is made in Mexico and its coconut-husk padding comes from the Netherlands.

The company’s own website states its mission in plain terms. Its About page, read in October 2026, says Sabai is setting a new standard for earth-friendly, affordable and beautiful furniture, and promises “no greenwashing, no chemicals.” A profile on the Havenly blog by Sara Watson, published on 12 October 2021, described Phataraprasit as a co-founder, said Sabai’s first chair had been launched after customers asked for one, and referred to the company’s “Sabai Standard,” under which pieces could be repaired with replacement parts rather than thrown away.

Made to order in American factories, packed flat and shipped in boxes.

Where Sabai’s furniture is made is described slightly differently by different sources. Modern Retail reported in September 2025 that the company had chosen to build its products at a domestic manufacturing site in North Carolina, a choice the article linked to cutting the emissions that come with shipping from overseas. The Havenly profile of 2021 called the brand’s pieces “USA-crafted.” The company’s About page, read in October 2026, goes further and says its furniture is made in ethically run factories in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Michigan, which it says are committed to quality, safety and a living wage. The factory names are not given on that page, and the company’s description of working conditions is its own.

The same page sets out how an order works. Sabai says each piece is fully custom and made to order, that its craftspeople begin building once an order is placed, and that the finished furniture ships flat in multiple packages by FedEx, sized to be easy to fit through doors and easy to carry. The customer then assembles the piece at home using the company’s instructions. The company also sells fabric swatches to order before buying.

The product range is organised into named families. The company’s site, in October 2026, listed seating lines called the Essential, the Elevate, the Eclipse and the Evergreen, along with the Bacana line, and grouped its fabrics as recycled velvet, upcycled poly, a hemp blend and cactus leather. A newer Elevate Natural collection sat at the top of the menu. Beyond seating, the site sold coffee and side tables, pillows, a rug and a dog bed.

Two programmes carry the brand’s idea of keeping furniture in use. Under Repair Don’t Replace, the company says, every piece has replaceable parts, so a chewed cushion or a damaged arm can be swapped rather than the whole sofa discarded; the site sells backs, arms, bases, cushion covers and legs separately, along with slipcovers and expansion kits that turn a sofa into a larger arrangement. Under Sabai Revive, customers can ask the company to buy back a piece it has made; the company says it partners with third-party retailers in the US and has worked with Floorfound to resell pieces. Modern Retail also described Sabai’s repair and resale services as a way of keeping items in circulation.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group all sell furniture direct to the people who buy it, mainly through their own websites, rather than leaving the sale to a department store or a showroom chain. Direct-to-consumer furniture brands in general sit at many different points in the trade: some design in one city and build in workshops far away, some ship sofas flat in boxes, some build each piece to order, and some later open stores of their own or change hands.

A furniture brand of this kind usually carries its identity less through a single product than through its website, its photography, its packaging and the way it explains how a piece is made and delivered. The company behind the name may have changed owners, moved its production or grown well beyond the place where it began, so the plain questions behind each name are worth asking: who started it, who owns it now, and where its furniture is actually made.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its pieces are made and how its identity has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

An identity that sells repair as much as it sells the sofa.

Sabai’s website carries its identity as much through what it promises as through how it looks. The About page groups the brand’s pitch under four headings, Design, Craftsmanship, Accessibility and Sustainability, and uses short, direct lines such as “Luxury furniture for less – without the stress.” Its parts pages list backs, arms, bases and cushion covers by product family.

The product names follow a single pattern. Essential, Elevate, Eclipse and Evergreen all begin with the same letter. The fabrics are named by what they are made of: recycled velvet, upcycled poly, hemp blend and cactus leather.

Sabai has also used physical space alongside its website. In October 2026 its site carried a banner inviting customers to visit a pop-up in Tribeca, New York, and a page headed “Find Sabai Near You” alongside programmes for the trade and for other retailers.

For a design guide, Sabai shows how a direct-to-consumer furniture brand can build its identity around materials, repair and resale, so that the life of a sofa after delivery becomes part of the brand. Compare Burrow, another sofa brand that ships in boxes, and Floyd, the furniture brand built around modular, flat-packed pieces. For this guide we use fern green, terracotta, oat and forest ink with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Sabai’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.