Fabric beds

Fabric beds are a ripping yarn

Not literally, of course, but we’ve had a lot of fun sourcing natural materials for each fabric bed we sell. This isn’t always easy, as there’s an awful lot of tat out there. But like food, we think natural is best. And our beds deserve nothing that we wouldn’t put on our own bodies.

We had mixed impressions when we saw the range of samples pedalled by various fabrics sales reps. Some fabrics were good and others were poor, and almost all of them were pretty pricey. We decided to do what we always do when faced with such problems: get on the blower, pack our bags and go directly to the source to find nothing but the best for our fabric beds.

We searched the world for the best material for our fabric beds

We’d heard that a lot of reputable fabric companies had moved their production to China, so off we went to Shanghai. We had a very clear idea of the sort of quality material we were looking to put on our fabric beds, but despite what we’d heard, the material we found never quite cut the mustard. The prices were great, which would help ensure our beds would always be of exceptional value, but either the colours were garish or the textures tacky. Just as we were tiring of constantly fruitless searches, a lovely old man told us that we would find what we were looking for in Vietnam. In the grips of our bed fabric obsession, off we flew to Ho Chi Minh City.

We went round some incredible places and saw a lot of British high street wares being produced (all in very happy working conditions, we’re pleased to say). But none of the fabrics were quite special enough for the likes of our Retro or Cloth beds. However, we came across a village cooperative, where they grow rice during the rainy season and hand stitch beautiful white bed linen during the other months. This was the best we’d ever seen and, as a result, it’s now available under our Accessories section.

“Wild Fabric Bed Goose Chase Ends In Holy Grail”

We’d had a lot of fun and met some wonderful people, and found our perfect bed linen, but we still hadn’t found exceptional quality fabrics for our beds. So we decided to put our Italian and French to good use and headed back to Europe. As soon as we saw the pure wool being produced in a streamlined, state-of-the-art mill outside Milan, we knew we had exactly what we wanted for our beds. This was fabric that was lovingly made, thick and smooth and in the natural colours for which Italy is famous. In the words of Gordon Ramsay: “Done!”

Traditional Belgian mills rule OK 

A couple of train rides later and we were in Belgium to see their gorgeous linens, which we hoped would also be perfect for our beds, although maybe a tad expensive. Unfortunately, many companies had upped sticks to the Far East to get cheaper prices, and we’d already seen what they had to offer. But we managed to track down a couple of producers who seemed to have bucked the trend. They were concentrating on selling gorgeous natural fabrics for beds and other soft furnishings at lower margins in the hope that they’d sell more of it. Well, it worked. Their fabrics were second to none: perfect weave, great colour pallets and lovely to the touch. This was exactly what we’d been looking for to put on each of our fabric beds, and it was right on our doorstep.

We consoled ourselves in the knowledge that if you don’t look you’ll never know and decided that local, as well as natural, was best for our fabric beds. (Well, Brussels is local compared to East China!)

To assuage the guilt about the carbon footprint we’d created in our quest to clothe our beds, we planted a load of trees to offset our emissions. Now, every time we send out a sample swatch for a bed, we smile at the thought of our trip to find it.