Last Modified 05 January 2024  |  
First Added 12 October 2020

How we Choose, Design & Launch our Bed Collections

A Feather & Black bed is designed for comfort, functionality, and of course, style, but to achieve great design our buying team journey through many design decisions, influences and tailoring before it’s ready to present to our discerning customers.

We want our beds to tell a story, to inspire and excite our customers, and here we reveal some insights into how we choose, design, and launch new bed collections.

A world of inspiration

Great design that incorporates style and functionality means drawing from lots of different forms of inspiration, not just what’s ‘in fashion’.

Online platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest are invaluable for showcasing current trends, while turning the pages of carefully edited interiors magazines and books on design spark ideas about shape, form, and colour both past and present.

We also draw creative inspiration from architectural features and by looking at different historical eras and thinking about how we can translate these beautiful classic features into our bed designs whilst maintaining important modern-day comforts.  With this in mind, our lovely new Shamley Bed (pictured) was chosen because we wanted to introduce a sleigh bed to the range, and felt it was important to represent this early 19th century design. Sleigh beds are traditionally wooden, and whilst we have adopted the styling, we’ve given ours a contemporary twist by upholstering it in a wool effect fabric to create a beautiful sense of warmth.

Colour, shape, and texture

Colour and texture speak volumes. It creates an expression, and both can deeply influence the look and feel of a room. We use the fashion and interiors world as our influence and where the fashion industry used to pave the way, now they look to one another.

Our new Lyndhurst Bed is an evolution of our best-selling Cameron Bed, and is currently available in a slate colour, with navy to join the collection a little later because with Pantone Classic Blue being the colour of the season, it would be rude not to! However, we have taken it a shade or two darker.

Shape is also extremely important, and we work to ensure our bed collection offers choice to satisfy both contemporary and classic tastes. Our new Shalford Ottoman features a scrolling head and foot end, both of which dip softly in the middle which is a trend we saw appear in Paris in early 2020. Not only did we love giving this traditional sleigh bed shape a modern twist but choosing two colourways gives our customer options in terms of the look their creating. Available in a beautiful Blush Velvet to give it a distinctly elegant feel, or a Grey Textured Weave for a more relaxed feel.

Knowing our customer

Great design can come in lots of forms, but part of our design process is knowing what’s right for our customers and creating beds that will delight and inspire. It’s important we reflect current trends but never forget much-loved traditional design. It’s equally important that we challenge our customers with looks, colours, shapes and finishes that they might not normally expect – take our best-selling Oliver Bed for example, we’ve created a stunning peony pink version as well as a statement navy blue.

But by the same hand, knowing what our customers need is a must. Our F&B ottomans are in high demand and in response to this we’re expanding our range and are pleased to introduce our upholstered Lymington Ottoman Bed which offers discreet but impressive storage, a stylish padded headboard and platform base.

So, launching a new bed collection isn’t an off-the-shelf kind of affair. It takes understanding of styles, trends and colour, combined with the needs and wants of customer lifestyles.

We very much hope you love our newly launched collection of beds as much as we do – and keep an eye out for those launching before Christmas!

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