These luxury duvets provide a decorative opportunity …
All products featured on thegloss.ie are selected by our editors. If you buy something through affiliate links on our site we may earn a commission.
When Terence Conran introduced the duvet into Habitat stores in 1964 – “sleep with a Swede” was the tagline – old-fashioned eiderdowns were banished to the airing cupboard, or the dog basket. Those sidelined silk and satin duck feather-filled bedspreads (cotton in the nursery), invented for chilly Victorian houses, are enjoying a resurgence now, as they provide a gorgeous opportunity to add colour and pattern, even in a contemporary home. You don’t need to give up your duvet in favour of an eiderdown – just place it on top. Nor do you need to have a country manor, or a four-poster bed (although the latter are also back in fashion). Eiderdowns are for everyone who appreciates their warmth and particular nostalgic charm.
You won’t be able to get your hands on an eiderdown stuffed with downy feathers from the female eider duck – she is a rare creature, though there are 100 pairs of eider ducks living along Ireland’s southern coastline. Eiderdown is now the generic name for any quilt filled with goose or mallard feathers, while no-feather eiderdowns for the allergy-prone contain a hypo-allergenic cotton filler. Choose from puffy silksatin in a chintzy floral, cosy cotton gingham or toile de jouy, bold tent stripes, or narrow ticking-style. As the evenings draw in, there could be nothing nicer than the thought of crawling under a pretty eiderdown and hibernating. Wake us in the spring – we are hibernating this Christmas!
According to Alice Naylor-Leyland of Mrs Alice fame, pictured here in her bed, the traditional eiderdown is the most classic of bedcovers. “With its reassuring weight, it really is like being hugged all night.”
Floral eiderdowns and matching pillow shams, from a selection; www.preenbythorntonbregazzi.com.
Handmade quilt in VendOme cotton stripe in Mirabelle yellow for Joanna Plant Interiors; www. joannaplant.com.
Lily of the Valley silk feather and down-filled eiderdown, Gingerlily x Memo Press, £2,150stg; www.gingerlily.co.uk.
Handmade quilt in Jay check linen in green F4762-04, Colefax and Fowler, €153.60 a metre, at Brian S Nolan, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.
Cream silk-mix lightweight quilted throw, Donna Karan, from €167.19; www.bedeckhome.com.
Handmade quilt in Floralia cotton velvet in Noir, €230 a metre; www.houseofhackney.com.
Handmade quilt in Greenacre linen in Leaf Green F4705-01, Colefax and Fowler, €163.20 a metre, at Brian S Nolan, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.
Floral Tree of Life handmade feather and down-filled cotton eiderdown, from €269.95; www.dearestviolet.com.
Celadon silk down-filled eiderdown, €2,374.95; www.mrsalice.com.
Pink floral Liberty-print reversible ruffle-detail silk satin anti allergenic-filled heirloom quilt, €762; www.cocoandwolf.com.
Black and off -white Harlem Toile kingsize silk feather and down-filled eiderdown, Gingerlily X Sheila Bridges, €2,491; www.harrods.com
