Bed making a dream

Press, 25 May 1989, Page 25

Bed making a dream

“I will have all my beds blown up, not stuff’d. Down is too hard,” said Sir Epicure Mammon, in Ben Johnson’s “The Alchemist,” in the seventeenth century. Maybe this epitome of depraved taste would have pronounced a different judgment on twentieth century beds, especially on today’s down and featherfilled duvets. Duvets combine lightness and warmth. Originating in Europe, they used to have two layers, with the snoozing body snuggled in between, instead of the modern single top layer. . Duvets turn bed-making into a dream. Teamed with a fitted sheet for the mattress the duvet needs a few shakes and a flick back into place and the bed is made. Usually a duvet and cover cost less than the equivalent of woollen blankets and a bedspread. Duvets can be filled with feathers, wool or dacron. The warmth of feather duvets is determined by the ratio of down to feathers. The higher the percentage of down, the warmer and lighter the duvet becomes. Discerning buyers will learn to feel the difference in quality by feel. As a duvet is a lifetime investment, good advice is to buy the best quality you can afford. If a feather and down duvet shows signs of wear, it can be remade. |£)uvets shoiild be drycleaned. A