Luxury Bed Brands at a Glance: Ten Profiles on Origin, Founding Year and Construction

This overview organises ten luxury bed brands by three verifiable criteria: origin, founding year and core construction. It contains no rating and no order of preference, and there is a plain reason for that — no independent testing-institute results exist for the models named here. Before you read on, our commercial interest belongs openly on the table: Imperial Interiors is a furniture store in Zurich. We are the exclusive Swiss distribution partner for DUXIANA and also carry our own brand NUVOSETTE, Flou and King Koil. We do not carry Hästens, Vispring, Elite, Schramm, Tréca or Auping — we do not represent these brands and do not sell them. We describe them here regardless, because a map that shows only its own four names is not a map. Every statement about a brand we do not carry comes from that brand's own communications and is credited to its source in the text; all manufacturer pages were accessed on 28 August 2026. Where manufacturers make body- or health-related claims on their pages, we do not repeat these and describe only the construction.

Hästens comes from Sweden and traces its history back to 1852. According to the Heritage page on hastens.com, Pehr Adolf Janson received his master craftsman's certificate as a saddler from the Swedish king on 22 March 1852; the house states that it is run as a family business in its sixth generation. The path from saddle to bed is dated on the same page: David Janson decided in 1917 to focus entirely on beds, and moved the operation to Köping in the Västmanland region in the mid-1920s — Köping has been the headquarters ever since, according to the manufacturer. Since 1952, Hästens has by its own account been purveyor to the Swedish royal court, appointed by King Gustaf VI Adolf and appointed again in 1995 by King Carl XVI Gustaf; this should be classed as a Swedish royal-warrant title, not as a product test. On construction, hastens.com names the natural materials horsehair, cotton, wool and flax in combination with spring systems: every bed is said to contain «two or more cooperating spring systems», the springs are said to be «made exclusively in Sweden», including pocket springs that work independently of one another. We deliberately do not repeat the health-related claims the manufacturer makes about these materials on the same page.

Vispring is the English brand in this line-up, and its history is often told in shortened form. According to the account on vispring.com, the British engineer James Marshall made the first pocket-spring mattress in Canada in 1899 for his ailing wife; in 1901 John Nolon and Frederick James brought the invention to Great Britain and founded the Marshall Sanitary Mattress Company in London, the originating company of Vispring. So the invention dates to 1899 in Canada, and the company's founding to 1901 in London — not to Plymouth: production only moved there in 1971, according to the manufacturer, where «almost 200 craftspeople» work today. Vispring states that it makes its springs in its own factory: «Unlike most manufacturers we produce our springs in-house at our Plymouth workshop.» As fill materials, the manufacturer names natural fibres such as wool, silk and horsehair, hand-teased and worked in layer by layer; the beds are, according to vispring.com, handmade; the house makes its springs, by its own account, in nine wire gauges and 74 spring types.

Elite is the Swiss brand on the list. According to the history page on elitebeds.ch, master saddler and upholsterer Jules-Henri Caillet founded the manufactory in 1895 in Aubonne on Lake Geneva, in the canton of Vaud; the house says it has been manufacturing in its Aubonne workshops for 130 years. As technical milestones, the manufacturer names the introduction of the spring core into its own mattresses in 1946 and a patent filed in 1969 for a base with its own spring system. In 2016 Elite presented the Woodenboxspring, a base made of solid Swiss wood which, according to the manufacturer, was developed in collaboration with the Bern University of Applied Sciences. Also by its own account, Elite became the first bed manufacturer to receive the EU Ecolabel in 2011 and introduced a lifetime warranty on spring-core mattresses and box springs in 2018.

Schramm comes from Germany. According to schrammbeds.com, Karl Schramm senior founded the business in 1923 as an upholstery and saddlery workshop in Alsenborn, in Rhineland-Palatinate; his son Karl Schramm junior specialised it in the production of mattresses and foundation mattresses in 1965. So the founding location is Alsenborn — the house moved to its manufactory in Winnweiler in the Palatinate in 1998, by its own account; around 200 employees now work there in mattress manufacturing, upholstery, joinery and the sewing atelier. The manufacturer describes its production as «Handmade in Germany», with over 10'000 mattresses a year made entirely by hand, and names four patents; fully integrated two-mattress systems are characteristic. For private customers, Schramm carries the lines PUREBEDS, ORIGINS & ORIGINS COMPLETE and GRAND CRU, according to its own website, plus a hotel collection under the name HOSPITALITY. The employee count, unit count and patent count are manufacturer statements that we were unable to verify independently.

Tréca Paris represents France. On treca-paris.com, the house states that it has been manufacturing high-quality beds in France since 1935, and names historic workshop locations in Chambord and in Alsace («ses ateliers historiques en France, à Chambord et en Alsace»). As construction features, the same page lists «suspension de ressorts ensachés» (pocket-spring suspension), «matières naturelles» (natural materials), «cousu à la main» (hand-sewn) and «sur mesure» (made to measure). The brand's boutique website, boutiques-treca-paris.com, additionally explains the origin of the name: it derives from «TREfilerie-CAblerie», that is, from wire-drawing works and cable works. Victor Moritz accordingly founded the first spring-mattress factory in 1935 in Reichshoffen in Alsace, building on the wireworks of his father René Moritz. In 1947, according to the same source, Tréca acquired the Pullman licence — a spring system originally developed for railway seats — and, according to this company-history page, has used it in several mattress models ever since.

Auping is the Dutch brand. According to auping.com, Deventer blacksmith Johannes Auping founded the company in 1888; its starting point was the invention of the mesh-base frame («Auping began with the invention of the mesh base»). The brand presents itself as «Royal Dutch Auping» — this is the manufacturer's own self-description on its site; we have not independently verified any official Dutch royal warrant, and we do not present it here as a state honour. According to the manufacturer, production takes place in the Netherlands («Handcrafted in the Netherlands») in its own «green factory» in Deventer; the mattress overview names «Dynamic Pocket Springs» and lists «Made in Deventer» as a quality feature. In March 2020, Auping by its own account received B Corp status — a certification from the organisation B Lab, which we have not independently verified there — and names the circular economy as one of three sustainability pillars.

From here on we are no longer neutral, and we say so: we sell these four brands. The information remains the same kind of information as above — origin, year, construction, each with its source.

DUXIANA traces back to DUX, founded in Malmö in 1926 by Efraim Ljung; according to the manufacturer, the company is now run in its fourth generation by Efraim Ljung's descendants and is, by its own account, entirely family-owned. Its technical hallmark is the Pascal System, patented according to the manufacturer: six interchangeable spring cassettes, three per side of the bed, in the shoulder, hip and leg zones, selectable in several firmness levels — the manufacturer's pages state different numbers of levels here; which levels apply for Switzerland we clarify in the showroom using the current sales documentation. The manufacturer named the system after the French physicist and mathematician Blaise Pascal. Depending on the model, this is combined with a multi-layer spring construction — duxiana.com describes the DUX 10 model as a «dynamic two-layer spring construction». What the manufacturer additionally writes about the effect on the body, we do not repeat; whether the chosen cassette combination suits you is in any case only shown by lying on it. At our Zurich store, DUXIANA beds start at CHF 5'300, the DUX mattress with Pascal System at CHF 3'600.

NUVOSETTE is our own brand — here we are a supplier speaking about ourselves. It grew out of more than twenty years of bed consultation in our showroom on Nüschelerstrasse and combines Italian fabrics with Swiss workmanship. Fabric, colour, size and firmness are all configurable, with personal embroidery on request; the materials used are OEKO-TEX certified, according to our suppliers' certificates. NUVOSETTE beds start at CHF 3'900, NUVOSETTE mattresses at CHF 2'800 (incl. VAT, as listed on imperial-interiors.com/de/betten).

King Koil comes from the USA: founded in 1898 by Samuel Bronstein in St. Paul, Minnesota, as United States Bedding, today headquartered in Avondale, Arizona, and, by its own account, present in more than 80 countries. Important for context: construction, collections and terms can differ by market; for Switzerland, the versions we carry apply. For the Reserve Luxury collection, kingkoil.com names hand-tied buttoning as well as layers of natural Talalay latex, horsehair and memory foam over 3'000 individually pocketed, glue-free steel springs that work independently of one another. At our store, mattresses from this collection start at CHF 3'500.

Flou is the Italian brand in the group and comes from the textile-bed tradition. According to flou.com, the house was founded in 1978 with the Nathalie bed, designed by Vico Magistretti and described by the manufacturer as «the first modern padded textile bed with completely removable covers». Nathalie received the XXVI Compasso d'Oro ADI for a product's career, according to flou.com («for the Product's Career»), awarded on 9 September 2020; the jury's citation names «typological innovation in the textile bed sector». Flou states that it has been honoured with the Compasso d'Oro twice — in 2004 for lifetime achievement and in 2020 for the product. The award is given by the Italian design association ADI; we have not independently verified the award itself there. Flou is rooted in the Lombard furniture region of Brianza: company founder Rosario Messina was granted honorary citizenship by the town of Meda and was a board member of the industry association of Monza and Brianza. The collections of Flou and its sister brand Natevo are distributed, according to the manufacturer, in around fifty countries.

Laying the profiles side by side, four construction principles remain at the core — they explain, better than any ranking, why two beds can feel so different. First, the pocket spring: springs individually sewn into fabric pockets that work independently of one another. Most of the manufacturers named in this overview cite it; Vispring traces its history back to precisely this 1899 invention, Tréca calls it «ressorts ensachés», Auping «Dynamic Pocket Springs», King Koil cites 3'000 individually pocketed steel springs, and Hästens independently working pocket springs — all four statements from the respective manufacturers' pages. Second, multi-layer spring systems, in which several spring layers of differing firmness sit one above the other: Hästens speaks of «two or more cooperating spring systems», DUX describes the DUX 10 as a «dynamic two-layer spring construction». Third, spring cassettes as a configurable element — DUX's Pascal System, patented according to the manufacturer, with six interchangeable cassettes per bed, is the only example of this in the overview. And fourth, the base, or foundation: Auping's origin is the 1888 mesh-base frame, Elite presented a box-spring base of solid Swiss wood in 2016, and Schramm describes fully integrated two-mattress systems as characteristic. The same materials recur across all the brands: horsehair, wool, cotton, flax, silk, latex and solid wood. Assignment to a construction principle describes the construction and says nothing about the execution or quality of the individual brand. Our own range focuses on spring-core systems — DUXIANA beds with multi-layer spring systems, box-spring beds and a small number of slatted-frame beds; we carry pure foam mattresses in practice only within pull-out sofas.

Of the six brands we do not carry, exactly one publishes prices publicly on its own brand website: Hästens. The bed overview on hastens.com states list prices in euros and explicitly notes that these are complete bed systems: «All prices refer to a complete bed system, including top mattress and legs.» The range shown there runs from the Marquis model from EUR 5'290, through Superia from EUR 8'590 and Eala from EUR 15'990, up to Vividus from EUR 316'990 and Grand Vividus from EUR 656'990 (accessed 28 August 2026). These figures are the manufacturer's international list prices, not Swiss retail prices, and they can change at any time. Vispring, Elite, Schramm, Tréca, Auping and also DUXIANA publish no prices on their brand pages. This article therefore makes no statement whatsoever about their price level: a cross-brand price comparison could not be substantiated, and estimated prices would be guesswork. What we can substantiate are our own entry prices in Zurich — they are stated here, incl. VAT. They are not comparable with Hästens's EUR list prices: different scope of what is included, different currency, different market.

Honestly, there are three things this map cannot do. It cannot rank any brand technically above another, because no independent testing-institute results exist for the models named. It cannot say anything about how widespread any brand is in Switzerland — no publicly verifiable figures exist for that. And it cannot confirm the body- and health-related claims that several manufacturers make on their pages; that is why they do not appear here, only the construction does. What remains is the test that actually decides a bed purchase: lying down, in your own sleeping position, without time pressure, for long enough that the body lets go. At our store on Nüschelerstrasse 30 in Zurich, you can do this without an appointment, Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 19:00 and Saturdays from 10:00 to 18:00; the initial consultation is free. You can only try lying on what we also carry: DUXIANA, NUVOSETTE, King Koil and Flou. For Hästens, Vispring, Elite, Schramm, Tréca and Auping, we are not the right address, and we do not pretend to be — anyone interested in one of these brands is best off contacting the respective manufacturer directly. You are still welcome, even if you end up buying elsewhere: the construction principles from the second-to-last section can be experienced side by side with us, and once you have felt a cassette system and a multi-layer spring system one after the other, you will read every manufacturer page differently afterwards. If you choose a bed from our own range, we deliver and assemble it nationwide, usually within 48 hours.