Natural Comfort
The Benefits of Using Natural Fibers in Upholstered Furniture 
                                                                                                by Lora Sharpe 
                  (This article was originally published in The Boston Globe, 9/26/93)

The relaxing chair, the comfortable sofa, even the pillow you fluff up at night is more likely now than in decades before to be made of natural fibers.

            Like the trend to more natural foods and more natural clothing, the desire for natural fibers and fillings in furniture stems from concerns for both the environment and our own comfort.

            Furniture designer and builder Walter Heller, owner of Heller Furniture in the Boston Design Center, for example, touts the old-fashioned comfort of sofas stuffed with horsehair or down, covered with the softness of cotton or the richness of silk.

            Silk bespeaks luxury, he says, and a sofa made the old-fashioned way just has more loft, making it more comfortable.  But he’s also concerned about the environmental aspects of synthetics.

            “I believe strongly in using natural materials, especially in mattress pads,” says Heller. Common sense and more than four decades of experience, he says, have convinced him that natural fibers and fillings are better for the human animal, a creature subject to allergies and sensitive to harsh materials. In a world where even the electric wires overhead are being anxiously reappraised, Heller questions whether we literally should surround ourselves every day with chemicals. Foam, for instance, which is used to shape much furniture today, is a mixture of chemicals that expand when heated.

 Today’s consumer shares this environmental concern. The natural fibers industry has had remarkable success persuading consumers to turn back to cotton, wool and even linen for households products. “We became aware about 12 years ago that consumers wanted natural fibers in everything,” says Eddie Hollier, vice president of international textiles for the Wool Bureau of Atlanta.

            “They wanted to wear them, buy them and live with them.” So, while wool has always been advertised as a natural product, it was promoted more heavily as such --- and wool’s share of the carpet market has doubled in that dozen years.

            Cotton, too, has captured consumers’ hearts. They are increasingly choosing cotton for “sitting on, sleeping in and wrapping up in,” says Mary Lou Hawkins, senior director of fashion for Cotton Incorporated, a not-for-profit marketing and research company in New York that’s funded by cotton producers.

            Not all that long ago, upholstered furniture was made solely of natural products because furniture makers had no choice. Traditionally, upholstered furniture was built up – small bundles of horsehair or cotton were stitched to a wooden frame fitted with springs.

            The piece gradually grew into shape, then was covered.

            “The hair is like little springs,” Heller says. Today, pieces are scaled down. A piece of foam is sculpted to form and covered.

            The old-fashioned way of building furniture is time-consuming and expensive, however. Even Heller can’t create only what he chooses. “I cannot afford not to follow standard methods,” he says. But he often chooses to design in natural fibers and has taught young upholsterers the craft. Many times, customers with allergies to synthetic materials have asked that he design furniture they can live with. Of course, people are allergic to natural fibers, too. Hawkins, from Cotton Incorporated, is allergic to down, a natural product and, naturally, turns to cotton pillows for her comfort.

            Cotton, horsehair, down, even marsh grass can be used to create comfortable furniture, says Heller. All those materials are available and would be even easier to get if consumers demanded them. Down is particularly popular: Once people get accustomed to down, they request it, Heller says.

            Although they don’t shrink from advertising the naturalness of their products, none of the natural fibers producers trumpets their environmental benefits.

            “We don’t get up on a platform,” says Livingston.

            “We think that the consumer knows,” It’s pretty clear, after all, that sheep and cotton and flax plants are renewable resources and their products biodegradable.

            The possibility of environmental problems from synthetic fibers is a murkier area and one not e exploited by the natural fibers industry. “We do know natural fibers do not give off toxic gas,” says Hollier. “But it’s not an angle we use. It scares the consumer.”

            It scares Heller too. “All these things dry out and emit vapors,” he says. We don’t know, he continues, “if they’re bad or good.”