Hästens
Encyclopedia
Hästens is a luxury
bed company founded in 1852 in Köping
, Sweden. Hästens manufactures hand-made beds and mattresses with natural materials like cotton
, horsehair
, wool
and flax
, rather than foam. The company was originally a one-man horse saddle
business by Pehr Adolf Janson and is still a family-owned business. David Janson (Pehr's son) shifted their focus in the early 1900's from making saddles to making horse hair beds and by 1952 they had become the official bedding supplier of Sweden’s royal court. As of 2010, Hästens top-end beds have a price tag of around €50,000.
After a few years he settled in Fellingsbro with his saddler and married Elisabeth Charlotta Carolina Almblad. Both their sons, Adolf Fredrik and Per Thure followed in their father´s footsteps and became saddler makers. Eventually, Adolf Fredrik became a liberal politician and Per Thure started a company along with his son David Janson. Soon they were making more beds and fewer saddles and in 1917 they decided to concentrate wholeheartedly on making beds. The same year they founded “The New Horsehair Spinning Mill” company, so that the entire horsehair cleaning process was completed at the factory. They wanted to move to Stockholm but when David met Astrid in 1924 they actually moved to Köping where the company remained to this day.
During the 1930´s the sleeping culture changed. Everyday people were now able to furnish separate bedrooms and buy real beds. Earlier, many people simply made up a sofa for the night and this served as their bed.
The reputation of Hästens beds began to spread. Swedish king Gustav VI Adolf visited Köping and the factory in 1953, the year Hästens became a purveyor to the Royal Court of Sweden. When the Swedish America Line bought horsehair mattresses for the M/S Gripsholm in 1958 it was a great PR triumph for the company.
David Janson continued to make beds in Köping until his death in 1963. After that, his oldest daughter Solveig and her husband Jack Ryde took over, with the support of her sisters Ethel and Yvonne. At the age of 17, Solveig began working for the company and she served as the financial manager for many years.
The blue check pattern was designed by Jack for a furniture trade show at the end of the 1970´s when the new Hästens model 2000T was introduced. “Ugly” commented certain design journalist at the time. In Sweden during the Seventies everything was supposed to be brown-green-orange and the fresh blue-white checkered upholstery was considered unfashionable by some. But a few years later one of the most outspoken critics bought a checkered Hästens bed.
In 1988 Solveig and Jack´s son Jan Ryde assumed operations of Hästens and carried the activity into 21st century. His arrival at the company wasn´t planed as he wanted to become a professor. He was a candidate for a doctorate in marketing when he met Anne-Lie from Köping. So he left the university life behind and moved back to home, starting to work for the company.
His vision from the beginning was to develop the business and find new costumers and markets as the company was a very small organization. In the 90´s Hästens was distributing in the North European countries gaining more markets because of the good quality of its beds. Partners abroad wanted a Hästens Store in their country and many stores and shop in shop have been opened in the developed countries during 2000´s. The year 2006 when Vividus, the highest bed model of the range, was released in China Hästens reached the Asiatic and American markets too.
- Best bed: it is about the high quality of the materials the beds are made of; the company uses costumers´ opinion about the products.
- Natural: the beds are made with flex, cotton, wool, horsehair and Swedish pine frame. Wool and horsehair have the property of regulating temperature and eliminate humidity, including the ½ l of sweat that our body perspires every night.
- Handmade: the company follows the tradition in making beds by hand. The only factory is in Köping, Sweden, where they stuff by hands 200 beds per day on average.
- Best sleep: Hästens wants to provide people with the best sleep by making the best beds on this purpose.
Most of the consumers mantain that Hästens bed improved their sleep and their life, expecially of those who used to suffer of back pain.
The beds are made by hand expecially for the owner, and it takes a few weeks to have the bed delivered at home. Chosing the right bed advices are given on Hästens website. One can choose between frame, continental and adjustable beds with soft, medium or firm structure.
Hästens has been the official bedding supplier of Sweden’s royal court since 1952. Even though there were 3000 companies approved to sell to the Royal Court in 1950´s, currently there are approximately 130 companies. The requirements for being appointed Royal Purveyor are rigid today. The company must have been in operation for at least 5 years and have a healthy financial situation. After an application is submitted to the court, it is up to the King or Queen to bestow purveyor status. The company must deliver products to the royal court before they may use the title Royal Purveyor.
A company that supplies products to the royal household by their own initiative is not entitled to display the royal warrant on the basis only. Orders must be received from the court, which also pays for the goods. The warrant must be renewed if there is a new king, or the company has a new managing director, or every 10 years.
• Swan Certified
The Swan is the symbol of the Nordic environmental marking system and has been around since 1989. Nordica environmental labeling was set up to benefit the environment by providing guidelines for conscientious consumers that wish to buy products that have the least impact on the environment. The primary goal of the Swan Certificate is to promote the development of environmentally friendly products and services.
Swan certified products must fulfill stringent requirements that guarantee that the products cause less negative impact on the environment than other, similar products. The product´s entire lifespan is taken into account, from raw material to rubbish.
Only manufacturing companies that adhere to rigid standards and those that allow recurring inspections are permitted to use the Swan eco-label on their products. The goal is to ensure that products with the Swan label uphold the highest environmental standards.
Hastens was the first bed manufacturer to be approved for Swan certification in 2005.
• Oeko-Tex 100
The purpose of the Oeko-Tex 100 standard is to provide assurance to costumers that labeled products adhere to strict requirements regarding the exclusion of harmful materials and substances. The driving forces behind Oeko-Tex 100 are twelve independent textile research institutes throughout Europe, including IFP, the Swedish Institute for Fiber and Polymer Technology.
In order to be certified, the producers have to comply with stringent requirements and allow recurring testing of their products.
During the laboratory analysis, Hästens bed materials were broken down to the molecular level to see that they are free from chemical substances.
• Mobelfakta
Möbelfakta is a Swedish reference and quality assurance system for the furniture industry with high standard requirements. The testing process includes:
- SS-EN 1957 “tests for assessment of functional properties” that include, among others, a fatigue test where a weight of 1400 N traverses the bed over 30,000 times.
- SS-EN 1725 “safety requirements and testing methods”
- SS-EN 1022 “home furniture-assessment of stability for seating furniture”.
The company´s bed received the recognition of fulfilling Mobelfakta´s highest requirements on November 14, 2003.
• Latex Free
Hästens´ beds are completely free from all forms of foam rubber and latex. They use only natural materials to build the beds, like cotton, wool, flax ad horsehair because “they are much nicer to the skin than latex, foam rubber and polyurethane”.
• Wallpaper Design Awards 2010 for Best Bed
, Finland
, and the US. After the 2008-2009 recession, annual revenue dropped sharply from SEK 512m (€ 57m) in 2008 to around SEK 325m (€ 36m) in 2009 and 2010. Over the year 2009, the majority (22 out of 34) of Hästens resellers in Netherlands closed down. A company representative stated that the focus was moving from stores in suburbian strip mall
s to downtown city centers, comparing themselves to other luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton
, Gucci
, and Mercedes
.
In a comparative test by an independent consumer testing organization, it turned out that the Hästens mattress suffered from a large amount of compression over time (presumably due to the natural fiber filling) and was only average in terms of body support. It was also noted that the large advertised warranty term only covers the frame and the springs, whereas other parts only get two years of warranty.
Luxury good
Luxury goods are products and services that are not considered essential and associated with affluence.The concept of luxury has been present in various forms since the beginning of civilization. Its role was just as important in ancient western and eastern empires as it is in modern societies...
bed company founded in 1852 in Köping
Köping
This article deals with the Swedish denomination for a market town. For the city, see Köping, Sweden. For the municipality, see Köping Municipality....
, Sweden. Hästens manufactures hand-made beds and mattresses with natural materials like cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
, horsehair
Horsehair
Horsehair is the long, coarse hair growing on the manes and tails of horses. It is used for various purposes, including upholstery, brushes, the bows of musical instruments, a hard-wearing fabric called haircloth, and for horsehair plaster, a wallcovering material formerly used in the construction...
, wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
and flax
Flax
Flax is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent...
, rather than foam. The company was originally a one-man horse saddle
Saddle
A saddle is a supportive structure for a rider or other load, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is the equestrian saddle designed for a horse, but specialized saddles have been created for camels and other creatures...
business by Pehr Adolf Janson and is still a family-owned business. David Janson (Pehr's son) shifted their focus in the early 1900's from making saddles to making horse hair beds and by 1952 they had become the official bedding supplier of Sweden’s royal court. As of 2010, Hästens top-end beds have a price tag of around €50,000.
History
Hästens was founded as a saddler in 1852 by Pehr Adolf Janson. In those days saddle makers were also upholsterers and they built mattresses as well. Perh Adolf was born in 1839 in a poor family. Many time his father had looked at him and his siblings and said: “You must do better that I. You must learn a proper trade, one that will let you make the things that people need. Then you will always be able to provide for yourselves.” When his father died, Per Adolf was 21 years old and already an established saddle maker´s apprentice. He qualified for the journeyman´s certificate on March 22, 1852. Qualifying for the certificate meant that you knew how to make a saddler, but also how to stuff a horsehair mattress.After a few years he settled in Fellingsbro with his saddler and married Elisabeth Charlotta Carolina Almblad. Both their sons, Adolf Fredrik and Per Thure followed in their father´s footsteps and became saddler makers. Eventually, Adolf Fredrik became a liberal politician and Per Thure started a company along with his son David Janson. Soon they were making more beds and fewer saddles and in 1917 they decided to concentrate wholeheartedly on making beds. The same year they founded “The New Horsehair Spinning Mill” company, so that the entire horsehair cleaning process was completed at the factory. They wanted to move to Stockholm but when David met Astrid in 1924 they actually moved to Köping where the company remained to this day.
During the 1930´s the sleeping culture changed. Everyday people were now able to furnish separate bedrooms and buy real beds. Earlier, many people simply made up a sofa for the night and this served as their bed.
The reputation of Hästens beds began to spread. Swedish king Gustav VI Adolf visited Köping and the factory in 1953, the year Hästens became a purveyor to the Royal Court of Sweden. When the Swedish America Line bought horsehair mattresses for the M/S Gripsholm in 1958 it was a great PR triumph for the company.
David Janson continued to make beds in Köping until his death in 1963. After that, his oldest daughter Solveig and her husband Jack Ryde took over, with the support of her sisters Ethel and Yvonne. At the age of 17, Solveig began working for the company and she served as the financial manager for many years.
The blue check pattern was designed by Jack for a furniture trade show at the end of the 1970´s when the new Hästens model 2000T was introduced. “Ugly” commented certain design journalist at the time. In Sweden during the Seventies everything was supposed to be brown-green-orange and the fresh blue-white checkered upholstery was considered unfashionable by some. But a few years later one of the most outspoken critics bought a checkered Hästens bed.
In 1988 Solveig and Jack´s son Jan Ryde assumed operations of Hästens and carried the activity into 21st century. His arrival at the company wasn´t planed as he wanted to become a professor. He was a candidate for a doctorate in marketing when he met Anne-Lie from Köping. So he left the university life behind and moved back to home, starting to work for the company.
His vision from the beginning was to develop the business and find new costumers and markets as the company was a very small organization. In the 90´s Hästens was distributing in the North European countries gaining more markets because of the good quality of its beds. Partners abroad wanted a Hästens Store in their country and many stores and shop in shop have been opened in the developed countries during 2000´s. The year 2006 when Vividus, the highest bed model of the range, was released in China Hästens reached the Asiatic and American markets too.
Hästens products´ characteristics
The brand chose four attributes to better describe its essence. The website is structured relying on these four cornerstones:- Best bed: it is about the high quality of the materials the beds are made of; the company uses costumers´ opinion about the products.
- Natural: the beds are made with flex, cotton, wool, horsehair and Swedish pine frame. Wool and horsehair have the property of regulating temperature and eliminate humidity, including the ½ l of sweat that our body perspires every night.
- Handmade: the company follows the tradition in making beds by hand. The only factory is in Köping, Sweden, where they stuff by hands 200 beds per day on average.
- Best sleep: Hästens wants to provide people with the best sleep by making the best beds on this purpose.
Most of the consumers mantain that Hästens bed improved their sleep and their life, expecially of those who used to suffer of back pain.
The beds are made by hand expecially for the owner, and it takes a few weeks to have the bed delivered at home. Chosing the right bed advices are given on Hästens website. One can choose between frame, continental and adjustable beds with soft, medium or firm structure.
Certifications of quality
• Royal PurveyorHästens has been the official bedding supplier of Sweden’s royal court since 1952. Even though there were 3000 companies approved to sell to the Royal Court in 1950´s, currently there are approximately 130 companies. The requirements for being appointed Royal Purveyor are rigid today. The company must have been in operation for at least 5 years and have a healthy financial situation. After an application is submitted to the court, it is up to the King or Queen to bestow purveyor status. The company must deliver products to the royal court before they may use the title Royal Purveyor.
A company that supplies products to the royal household by their own initiative is not entitled to display the royal warrant on the basis only. Orders must be received from the court, which also pays for the goods. The warrant must be renewed if there is a new king, or the company has a new managing director, or every 10 years.
• Swan Certified
The Swan is the symbol of the Nordic environmental marking system and has been around since 1989. Nordica environmental labeling was set up to benefit the environment by providing guidelines for conscientious consumers that wish to buy products that have the least impact on the environment. The primary goal of the Swan Certificate is to promote the development of environmentally friendly products and services.
Swan certified products must fulfill stringent requirements that guarantee that the products cause less negative impact on the environment than other, similar products. The product´s entire lifespan is taken into account, from raw material to rubbish.
Only manufacturing companies that adhere to rigid standards and those that allow recurring inspections are permitted to use the Swan eco-label on their products. The goal is to ensure that products with the Swan label uphold the highest environmental standards.
Hastens was the first bed manufacturer to be approved for Swan certification in 2005.
• Oeko-Tex 100
The purpose of the Oeko-Tex 100 standard is to provide assurance to costumers that labeled products adhere to strict requirements regarding the exclusion of harmful materials and substances. The driving forces behind Oeko-Tex 100 are twelve independent textile research institutes throughout Europe, including IFP, the Swedish Institute for Fiber and Polymer Technology.
In order to be certified, the producers have to comply with stringent requirements and allow recurring testing of their products.
During the laboratory analysis, Hästens bed materials were broken down to the molecular level to see that they are free from chemical substances.
• Mobelfakta
Möbelfakta is a Swedish reference and quality assurance system for the furniture industry with high standard requirements. The testing process includes:
- SS-EN 1957 “tests for assessment of functional properties” that include, among others, a fatigue test where a weight of 1400 N traverses the bed over 30,000 times.
- SS-EN 1725 “safety requirements and testing methods”
- SS-EN 1022 “home furniture-assessment of stability for seating furniture”.
The company´s bed received the recognition of fulfilling Mobelfakta´s highest requirements on November 14, 2003.
• Latex Free
Hästens´ beds are completely free from all forms of foam rubber and latex. They use only natural materials to build the beds, like cotton, wool, flax ad horsehair because “they are much nicer to the skin than latex, foam rubber and polyurethane”.
• Wallpaper Design Awards 2010 for Best Bed
Markets
In 2006, Hästens was marketed in 35 countries, the largest markets being NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, and the US. After the 2008-2009 recession, annual revenue dropped sharply from SEK 512m (€ 57m) in 2008 to around SEK 325m (€ 36m) in 2009 and 2010. Over the year 2009, the majority (22 out of 34) of Hästens resellers in Netherlands closed down. A company representative stated that the focus was moving from stores in suburbian strip mall
Strip mall
A strip mall is an open-area shopping center where the stores are arranged in a row, with a sidewalk in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a unit and have large parking lots in front...
s to downtown city centers, comparing themselves to other luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton Malletier – commonly referred to as Louis Vuitton , or shortened to LV – is a French fashion house founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label is well known for its LV monogram, which is featured on most products, ranging from luxury trunks and leather goods to ready-to-wear, shoes,...
, Gucci
Gucci
The House of Gucci, better known simply as Gucci , is an Italian fashion and leather goods label, part of the Gucci Group, which is owned by French company PPR...
, and Mercedes
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...
.
Criticism
In 2000, a Swedish court ruled that Hästens was not allowed to advertise with misleading phrases such as "The finest beds in the world" and "Due to [our unique manufacturing process in Köping], we can offer 25 years warranty on springs and frames". The latter was, among other reasons, because the springs and frames were actually manufactured by a subcontractor. As of 2011, the phrase "At Hästens we set out to make the best beds in the world." is used.In a comparative test by an independent consumer testing organization, it turned out that the Hästens mattress suffered from a large amount of compression over time (presumably due to the natural fiber filling) and was only average in terms of body support. It was also noted that the large advertised warranty term only covers the frame and the springs, whereas other parts only get two years of warranty.