aquabags started in a
Sydney backyard in 2018.
We just wanted one that didn't go mouldy.
Every pool bean bag we could buy in Australia had the same problem. It looked great in the photo, lasted one summer, and by March it was stiff, faded and smelled like a wet tent.
We figured a product designed to sit in chlorine and full sun ought to be built for chlorine and full sun. That sounds obvious. It isn't how most of them are made.
The cheap ones use 450D fabric because it's light and it's cheap, and they seal the cover shut because a removable cover costs more to sew. So water gets in, the bag can't dry out, and the fabric fades because nobody paid for a colour fastness test. Every one of those decisions saves a few dollars a unit and costs the customer the whole product a season later.
So we went the other way. Tougher fabric. A removable, washable cover. An inner liner so the thing can actually breathe. And independent fastness testing before anything goes into production, which is the single least glamorous and most useful thing we do.
“If these didn't hold up we'd know about it. A couple of thousand people have one, and the unhappy ones write reviews.”
the family bit
We come from textiles. The family business has been importing and distributing fabric out of Sydney for decades, which meant that when we started asking mills awkward questions about denier counts and coating weights, we already knew which answers were rubbish.
It also means we specify our own fabric rather than picking from a supplier's catalogue. When we say 1680D at 550gsm with a PVC coat and Grade 4+ fastness, that's a spec we wrote and hold the mill to — not a description we were handed.
where we've got to
Eight years on, Aqua Bags are in backyards across the country. We supply Temple & Webster — Australia's largest online furniture and homewares retailer — and independent pool and outdoor stores through our own reps.
We're still a small business. We still answer our own emails. And we still argue for a week about whether a colour is right before it goes into a production run.
how it's gone.
Started, mostly out of frustration with what was already on the market.
First proper production run under the Aqua Bags name. Solid colours, one size, a lot of learning.
Listed with Temple & Webster and the volume changed completely.
Moved to a new manufacturer and upgraded to 1680D at 550gsm.
Eleven-colourway striped collection, plus ledge cushions and a floating umbrella.
why we're fussy about colour.
A bean bag that fades doesn't break — it just quietly gets embarrassing. It's still perfectly functional and you stop wanting it in your backyard.
That's why the fabric goes through an ISO 105-B02 fastness test before production, and why we won't run one under Grade 4. It's also why we walked away from a supplier who quoted us Grade 3 and told us nobody would notice.
We'd have noticed. By February.
Not chosen from a catalogue. Written as a spec and held to it, with fastness test reports on file.
Every product is a removable, washable cover with an inner liner, because things that live outside need to dry properly.
Australian sun beats every outdoor fabric eventually. We'd rather explain where ours sits than pretend it's immortal.
come and sit down.
Eleven stripes in the 2026 collection, landing 30 September.
shop the collection