The body contour revolutionary in luxury mattresses
By L.J. BUTTERFIELD :: July 21, 2006

In the world of Pat Norcross, nothing says Sunday morning like the newspaper, a cup of coffee and, most of all, crawling back into her ultra luxurious Dux bed with down comforter and 600-thread-count sheets.

Of course, crawling into bed feels just as good every night of the week to Norcross since she has become a convert to the philosophy of personal luxury.

“We love our bed,” she gushes. “I get into it and it’s so soft. It takes on the contours of your body,” said Norcross, a Greenwich resident.

“When we go camping we actually fantasize about having a travel Dux bed with us,” she laughed.

It’s no wonder. A Duxiana mattress is the ultimate in personal luxury.

Made from interconnecting, multilayered little springs, Duxiana mattresses are the result of an intricate system designed to support the spine. And since different people have distinctly different body types, each side of a Dux bed can be individually customized to fit the needs of both people sleeping on it. Now that’s personal luxury revolutionized.

But Duxiana isn’t the only company altering how we sleep.

Dormia mattresses, with a branch on Central Park Avenue in Scarsdale, is keeping up with the trend toward optimized well-being.

“The Duxiana mattresses have a ton of inner springs with latex on top,” said Robert Aviles of his competition. “The Duxiana springs are good,” he said. “But at Dormia we have no springs whatsoever.”

Aviles runs nine Dormia Mattresses stores in the Northeast and, after 27 years in the business, sees the future of the mattress industry in terms of memory foam and latex.

Bringing a touch of luxury to personal spaces has become a growing trend among homeowners who have concentrated so long on creating comfortable rooms for guests. When it comes to well-being, a good mattress can make the difference from feeling tired at the end of the night or refreshed.

MATTRESS THERAPY

“People finally made the connection between sleep and health,” said Aviles.

“Latex naturally fights any insects, like dust-mites.”

“All natural latex comes from a rubber tree,” he said. “My four kids have latex mattresses. For people with allergies, these beds can change their lives. Latex is the mattress of choice for all retailers, it can last 40 to 50 years.”

To continue with the philosophy of good health, Dormia added tuftings of New Zealand lambs wool to act as a ventilation system by aiding the airflow.

Dormia also uses memory foam (or Visco elastic foam) that was developed by NASA in the 1970s.

It illuminates the pressure points, contours to the body and only moves where you put pressure on it.

“I could do the mergence on the other side of the bed and you’d feel nothing,” said Aviles.

Dormia uses latex and memory foam in tandem to create the ultimate personalized bed.

“It’s all tweaking the comfort,” he said. “We fine-tune the feel to you. And you never have to flip the mattress.”

The customization doesn’t stop there. You can combine any Dormia mattress with an adjustable power bed in order to achieve the “most natural sleeping position.”

“Sleeping flat is barbaric,” said Aviles. “With Dormia beds, you can sleep in a zero-gravity position.”

In a zero-gravity environment, scientists at NASA noticed that when astronauts sleep, theIR posture is bent to a 30-degree angle, their ankles rise to the same plane as their heart and their arms are left hanging down.

“Breathing is much easier in this position,” said Aviles. “It opens up the diaphragm much better, keeps stress off the heart and the body detoxifies more quickly.”

“If everyone had these beds there would be no more road rage,” said Aviles, furthering the connection between sleep and health.

“Did you know the day they turned the clocks ahead is the biggest day for car accidents? What does that tell you,” he asked.

LUXURY LINENS

It’s not just the mattress that makes the bed. Good linens are just as important.

At Home Boutique of Greenwich on Lewis Street, owner Normin Taylor, a Greenwich resident, knows everything there is to know about choosing the right fabric for you.

“I’ve always loved linens,” she said.

The first thing to look for when buying great linens is the thread count. Good thread counts run from 300 to 1000; the higher the thread count, the softer the sheet.

There are two main types of bed linens: percale and sateen. The feel of a percale sheet is crisp, light and airy. Sateen is silkier and soft.

“Linen comes out of the loom in percale form then goes through a process to make it sateen,” said Taylor.

So which is better?

It really depends on the customer’s preference.

“In the summer people tend to like sheets that are light and airy so they may chose a percale,” said Taylor. “Or they may prefer sateen in the winter. Touching it is the best way to pick the linen for you.”

But don’t just rely on thread count and type alone.

“It’s really the quality of the fiber makes the difference,” said Taylor. “If the quality isn’t good it may not feel like a 500-threadcount sheet. The fiber has to be continuous.

Short fibers make it feel rougher than a longer fiber,” she said. “Egyptian cotton is the best, it has the longest fibers.”

“And remember that better fiber is lighter but the higher the thread count is
in the sheet, the heavier it’s going to be,” she said.

“Then look at the fabric content.”

Be sure to look for more than just the sateen or percale demarcation when buying linens since there are differences in the fabric content. If you’re buying sateen it could be synthetic sateen, cotton sateen or silk sateen.

“If you’re overwhelmed by the choice you want to stick with names of brands that you know are better,” said Taylor.

Egyptian cotton is great but “good linen fiber is also found in Belgium, Ireland and Italy,” said Taylor.

“Sixty percent of my items come from Italy. Historically, Italy has always had the looms. These days though they’re moving the factories to India.”

India has been doing amazing embroidery work lately. And the linens are a little more contemporary.”

Shoppers are beginning to distinguish good quality no matter where the linens come from.

“People are more educated when it comes to linens now. Business is better this year, people are changing their linens more often and I’ve also been doing a lot of summer homes.”

So what color bed sheets are the most popular in Fairfield and Westchester counties?

“I think white is definitely the numberone color, then ivory,” said Taylor. “Blue is a big one in Greenwich though, especially blue and white.”

For Pat Norcross, though, the color is irrelevant. It’s all about the comfort and sense of well-being.

“When I hit that bed I feel like the princess and the pea,” she said. “I mean with all those mattresses … not the pea.”