THE NEW BREED OF SOFAS THAT ARE BUILT TO LAST
We’ve all heard of fast fashion and the damage it is unleashing on the environment, but fast furniture is quickly becoming just as prevalent.
More than 70 million pieces of homeware are thrown away in the UK alone each year, and the sofa is arguably the guiltiest of them all. With its bulky proportions and often toxic components, a staggering 8,000 are destined for landfill or incineration each day.
The average lifespan of our most physical home comfort (arguably after the bed, of course) is thought to be just 11 years. But Keep, a new sofa brand launched this week, is among those setting out to encourage customers to turn a blind eye to trends, and look for timeless design and sustainable manufacture that will produce a sofa you’ll want to hold on to, rather than buy into flash-in-the-pan fads.
Keep is the brainchild of James Rubin-Smith and Rob Hudson, who met while working as a buyer and a merchandiser at the furniture e-tailer Made during its heyday. The company, which quickly became a favourite with millennials in particular, entered administration in 2022 after difficulties with its supply chains and a drastic slump in sales post-pandemic, and has since been resurrected by Next, which bought out its intellectual property.
Hudson and Rubin-Smith had left the business before redundancies loomed, and landed on the idea of Keep over dinner one night. “We were talking about the lack of focus on sustainability in certain areas and the opportunity there,” says Rubin-Smith. While neither is a designer in the career sense, what they bring is business acumen and first-hand experience of production methods.
They aren’t the only ones spotting a gap in the market: Meg Holloway, the founder of the design studio Maro, is launching simple, carefully considered, locally made sofas covered in any upholstery fabric of the customer’s choice, including vintage textiles. She has poured everything she gleaned from three years working in product and marketing for a leading sofa brand, and has landed on loose, slip-style covers in order to bypass coatings and chemical treatments.
Durability and timelessness are not usually the budget option, but several brands offer a range of different price points. Keep’s inaugural collection, for instance, has three styles at a variety of prices: the less expensive models, from £2,400, come with seat cushions with foam-free, hypo-allergenic inners made from Ultraflex, which is manufactured from recycled plastic bottles. The more premium range comes with a blend of feather and down seat pads, and feather back cushions. Its founders are aiming to “bake the sustainability and material selection into the DNA of each product”, says Hudson: their sofas have pocket springs from producers in Yorkshire, and hardwood birch frames which come with a lifetime guarantee.
In the case of Keep sofas, the removable fabric covers aren’t produced on British soil, but are made from Aquaclean, which means they are inherently stain-resistant and fire-retardant, rather than chemically coated. A factory in north Wales produces each sofa.
In the opinion of Meg Holloway of Maro, provenance is a key indicator of quality and longevity: the UK is globally revered for the craft of sofa making, and independent makers will use traditional techniques involving horsehair, kiln-dried woods and hand-stitched finishes. Esteemed brands such as George Smith and Lorfords Contemporary produce only in Britain.
Keep, as well as brands such as Heal’s and Swyft, offers longevity in the form of modular functionality, which it hopes will appeal to home owners who want to scale up, rather than ditching their current sofa to buy new. For instance, a two-seater Keep sofa could be beefed up to a four-seater L-shape in future with the addition of inserts and footstools.
Unlike the on-trend shapes which Made became known for, the brand’s designs are markedly sober. “We wanted to have quite a simple, modern European aesthetic,” explains Hudson. By using the same frame for each style but altering the shapes and composition of the cushions, the end pieces are distinctive from one another, but the brand is able to hold a small amount of stock at any time – so no waiting four months for your sofa to arrive (a bugbear among Made customers). Established companies have been gradually increasing the availability of their bestselling designs, with the British companies Neptune and Love Your Home offering express delivery on some models.
Greenwashing is currently rife in the furniture sector, and while Hudson and Rubin-Smith of Keep are striving to make positive change, they point out that their brand isn’t perfect. Plus while each of their sofas is 100 per cent recyclable in theory, the infrastructure around waste management isn’t yet optimised: a sofa requires careful stripping of all its separate components to be responsibly disposed of, but lack of resources means it will usually end up being incinerated. Their next step isn’t to diversify into producing more furniture lines, but to lobby competitors to push for change and help establish better practices around sustainability and a product’s end-of-life journey.
Perhaps the best thing the customer can do, both for the planet and for their own pocket, is to buy well, and buy once. Here’s what to bear in mind if you want to buy a sofa that will last.
How to choose a sofa that will go the distance
It pays to invest
“It sounds obvious but buy the best you can afford,” says Kate Watson-Smyth, the author of Mad About the House, who recently designed a range in collaboration with Love Your Home. “A sofa is an investment and you want it to last a long time. Don’t skimp on the quality.”
Question the comfort
“Look for springs in the seat rather than foam or microfibre, which will collapse over time,” says Watson-Smyth. Interior designer Lizzie Green suggests visiting showrooms wherever possible: “Tensions differ a lot with sofas and given how much use it gets, it is worth taking the time to make sure you’re comfortable on it.”
Swerve trends
Unusual designs are eye-catching, but can date quickly. “Pick a classic shape that you won’t tire of because a well-made sofa frame will last and you can reupholster and change the cover as many times as you like,” says Watson-Smyth.
Size up
Measure your door openings (and then measure again) and opt for the biggest size you can get. “If you can fill a wall with a sofa, then do,” says Green. “Rather than side tables at either end, you can go for a longer coffee table.”
Pattern versus plain?
For households with pets or small children, consider a printed fabric, which will hide dirt and wear more effectively. “You can add a contemporary twist with plain cushions,” suggests Watson-Smyth. Of course you can style a neutral sofa the other way around, treating it as a blank canvas with a revolving cast of patterned cushions.
Good-quality sofas to try
Case Forum 3-seater
£5,195, Heal’s
Dawdler sofa
From £1,545, Loaf
Signature linen sofa
£8,592, George Smith
Umea sofa
£2,475, Cox & Cox
Ottilie modern sofa
From £2,863, Love Your Home