Bedding innovatons abound
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, March 13, 2006
High Point — Bedding industry suppliers are going to extreme lengths to bring new technologies to mattress makers.
Climbed Mount Everest lately? Journeyed to Asian bamboo forests? Those are some of the more exotic locales that helped produce and popularize mattress materials now being offered to manufacturers.
Here's a look at some of the newest products on the market. They all will be on display at the International Sleep Products Assn. show in San Antonio next month.
DesleeClama
Among its new products is a mattress fabric produced with natural bamboo yarn. The environment-friendly fabric has natural properties that resist bacteria and fungi, the company says.
Bamboo yarns create soft and silky fabrics that breathe, are cool to the touch and feature high abrasion resistance, according to the company.
Also new are cashmere fabrics, fashioned from a natural fiber made from the fleece of the Kashmir goat. They offer a soft, natural and luxurious feel, the company says.
Other introductions include Dry Fast fabrics, which are washable and retain their moisture-regulating properties, helping to promote cool, dry and comfortable sleep, and Holofiber, a fabric that ensures optimum blood circulation and strengthens the muscular system, according to the company.
Tietex Ticking
BodyClimate by Polartec is the result of a partnership between Tietex Ticking and Malden Mills. More than a year in the making, the new fabric is designed to enhance the latest advances in visco-elastic and latex beds.
Tietex says the fabric offers better ticking performance by using patent-pending air channels that take heat away when the body is hot and serve to insulate when the body is cold. The fabric also has moisture transport properties to keep the body dry. It is, the company says, the first ticking with balanced stretch and recovery characteristics made specifically for visco and latex beds, maximizing the benefits of those materials.
Polartec, made by Malden Mills, is a well-known consumer brand. The high-performance fabric has headed up the slopes of Mount Everest and has been used by the U.S. Army to keep soldiers comfortable while wearing body armor.
BodyClimate by Polartec offers a new level of performance in mattress ticking, Tietex says.
Soltex
The company is introducing Soster, a Stitchbond fabric that can be used in the manufacture of mattresses and box springs to meet the requirements of California's open-flame flammability law. Pratrivero, parent of Soltex, has been working on Soster for almost two years. The fabric is designed to be a fashion item that is printable, offers a good hand and is strong.
Some elements of the Soster system can be incorporated into midpriced and high-end bedding products.
Norman Kovalsky, vice president of sales and marketing at Soltex, said that test results show that Soster performs well throughout the test period specified by the California standard.
Freudenberg North America
The supplier is showcasing its growing line of mattress products in a specially designed demonstration mattress called Luxura, which features five Celestia FR materials together with Freudenberg's newly introduced Evolon, a microfiber mattress ticking, and Novolon, a comfortable and breathable mattress interior material.
The demonstration mattress will allow prospective customers to experience the effect of all of Freudenberg's mattress products in a single place.
The list of FR materials is headed by the basic Celestia line, designed to meet all of the latest flammability regulations without disturbing the aesthetic integrity of the mattress. The line includes a variety of mono- and dual-layered materials and a filler cloth.
The expansion of the Celestia line includes Celestia Stretch, Celestia Plus and Celestia Novo. The stretch product is an omni-directional fabric that meets foam-core mattress FR requirements. Celestia Plus is said to be the industry's first composite mattress component, and Celestia Novo is a three-dimensional composite that combines mattress ticking and fire barriers.
