What constitutes a “sleep product” is a bit of a consumer Rorschach test. Bro scientists sell AI-enabled whatever. Style types sell silk robes and Italian slippers. The average consumer doesn’t really look past beds and bedframes. Us? We believe in it all, and over the past year we tested it all. The 2026 Esquire Sleep Awards is the world’s greatest collection of products guaranteed to get you some shut-eye. —Luke Guillory, commerce editor
|
|
|
|
After 365 days of getting some serious shut-eye, these are the year’s 43 standout products.
|
Good sleep is hard work. If everyone could just flop down and immediately drift off, the world would be a different, more agreeable place. Instead, we all live life under-rested and over-caffeinated. The market’s response has turned sleep into a multibillion-dollar industry. You need the right pillow, the right mattress, silky sheets, and a few cozy pieces of loungewear. But it doesn’t stop there. There’s the alarm clock engineered to improve your habits, the lamp that wakes you up like a sunrise, not to mention the bed frame and rug that make your space feel like a true oasis. These are consumer choices, sure, but they are choices that have a real effect on your day-to-day life.
With every new direct-to-consumer furniture brand and tech company promising you percentage points of improvement on sleep, the hard part is figuring out which products are actually worth a damn. The days of grabbing a pillow off a department-store shelf are long gone. That’s where our testers come in. Our editors have spent the past year working hard at sleeping and constantly visiting showrooms, swapping out bed frames, and testing the most outlandish tech you’ve ever heard of.
|
|
|
|
Tom Colicchio climbed the gray staircase from the basement kitchen and made his way toward New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani’s table. Colicchio is compact and lean, and he moves with purpose. You could spot him easily enough in his white chef’s jacket with “T.C.” on the left breast, under a special-edition apron embroidered with “25” to mark a quarter century since the opening of this, his signature restaurant, Craft. The anniversary had just passed, in March. For all those years, the restaurant has been the anchor of Colicchio’s reputation—the James Beard Award winner for Best New Restaurant in 2002; three stars from The New York Times. A PBS spot on the opening of the restaurant caught the eye of producers at Bravo who were looking for a head judge for a new show called Top Chef.
|
|
|
|
When was the last time you took buying flip-flops seriously? Well, maybe not “seriously” in the way you take a job interview, but when was the last time you went looking for the best flip-flop you could find? You’re forgiven if the answer is never. Normally, thonged sandals are an impulse buy off the drugstore or surf-shop racks 30 minutes before you hit the beach because you forgot to pack the pair you already own (from last year, when you did this exact thing). What’s a few bucks for sandals you’re wearing for the short distance between your car and the shore or while barhopping boardwalks in 90 degree heat?
But Reef, one of Esquire’s recommended waterside brands, makes a convincing argument that even the most casual footwear should be as carefully considered as bench-made footwear.
|
|
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment