The background

Svane – sleep quality since 1937.

In 1937, Ekornes launched the first brand of Norwegian furniture production: Svane. Svane has come a long way since 1937, but people’s trust in the brand remains just as strong as it was then. We have always aimed to be an early adopter of new technology and innovative solutions, so that our beds and mattresses provide the best rest and sleeping comfort.

Ekornes’ ongoing commitment to innovation, combined with extensive experience, is what sets Svane beds and mattresses apart from other manufacturers. Because we focus on what’s inside the mattress, we can offer unique comfort for everyone.

It started with simple spring mattresses

In 1934, Jens E. Ekornes returned from a trip to Germany armed with some machines and began producing springs for the growing furniture industry. The idea for his own mattress production came to him when he saw an English spring insert with bonded springs. He understood that such springs meant lighter and more comfortable mattresses, and so began making his own. The Svane mattresses with springs and breathable properties were an instant hit. People were lying, sleeping and resting better. Talk was that everyone should get a mattress from Svane.

The Norwegian furniture industry’s number one brand

The Svane brand was established in 1937 and the first mattress models Eva, Ideal and Rekord were launched for the Norwegian market. Svane was the Norwegian furniture industry’s first real brand, and has, in recent years, become a well-known brand within beds and sleeping comfort, both nationally and internationally.

DuoSystem – a great idea

1993 saw the launch of the Svane DuoSystem, initially designed only for eversible mattresses. At some point a young boy went into the production area with the idea of adding a zipper to the cover of the box mattress and putting a reversible mattress inside the cover so that you could open the zip and remove and turn the mattress inside with the DuoSystem. As a result, the DuoSystem was added to more and more parts of the range. Soon there were reversible mattresses in all beds, and the DuoSystem could be offered on mattresses without IntelliGel.

IntelliGel – a unique discovery

It was on a business trip in the Netherlands in 1999 that our then CEO, Cato Frimann, discovered an American newspaper on a bar counter. In the newspaper was small ad from an innovation company inviting people to come and see a new and groundbreaking material they had invented. Cato found the description of the material particularly interesting and showed the ad to his colleague and technical manager for Ekornes Beds, Sigmund Ekornes. They agreed that this was an opportunity not to be missed. They booked flights and traveled to Alpine, Utah USA for an initial visit. There they were shown a very early version of IntelliGel. Cato and Sigmund were very interested and talked about Svane and its many products for Norway’s oldest brand in the industry. And so it came to be that Ekornes Beds signed a letter of intent with EdiZone and a long-term and still active collaboration began.

Here too, a journey began for Sigmund Ekornes. He aimed to build the world’s most advanced machine for the production of the new groundbreaking material. When the machine was ready in 2003, Tony and Terry Pearce, the inventors of IntelliGel, were impressed by the production equipment that had been created at Fetsund. And with good reason. Today we know that all IntelliGel produced on Ekornes Beds has been produced on this machine and that the machine is still in full production today, 16 years on.

Alongside the development of the machine, extensive work began on the design and development of Svane^® Zenit. This was the start of the IntelliGel adventure. Svane^®Zenit was launched in 2004. The development was done together with a chiropractor, Hans Jørgen Sørensen. In 2006, the Svane^® Zefir arrived, which over the years as part of the Svane collection has won everything there is to win in comfort tests and product comparisons.

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FlexSystem – four levels of firmness

Ekornes Beds has come up with plenty of great inventions over the years. With slogans like “Good ideas, intelligent solutions”, it has been important for the company to create real user benefits and something that adds value to those who show brand trust by buying the products. One of these intelligent solutions was a zipper solution that came onto the market in 2001. This solution made it possible to attach one cover that embraced an entire continental bed. With two layers of mattresses with DuoSystem in one cover, it was possible to choose between different levels of firmness so that a new level of comfort could be achieved. By simply switching the top and bottom mattress, you could get either a firmer or softer surface. In 2021, all Svane continental beds were equipped with the FlexSystem, which gives you a choice of four firmness levels.