Designer and HGTV host Nate Berkus enters the sleep products category with a new 15-month partnership with Serta Simmons Bedding’s Beautyrest range.
Dubbed the “Limited Edition” program, the partnership includes a mattress, mattress protector and pillows sold through SSB’s retail partners and online through the company’s website.
No stranger to home decor, Berkus has licensing deals with fabric brand Kravet, window treatment company The Shade Store, a bed, bath and home organization coming soon from m Design Home Décor, and a furniture offering with California retailer Living Spaces in Collaboration with his husband and HGTV co-host Jeremiah Brent. Mattresses, on the other hand, were missing from his portfolio.
Until now.
Likewise, SSB isn’t a newcomer who jumps to bed with hard-hitting names for product design and marketing appeal. 2014 saw the race car sponsorship with Dempsey Racing, owned by Grey’s Anatomy actor Patrick Dempsey. In 2016, the company signed NFL quarterback Tom Brady – formerly of the New England Patriots and now the lead man of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers – to present Beautyrest Black.
More recently, last year the company commissioned wedding dress designer Christian Siriano to design a mattress to coincide with the wedding season.
The Beautyrest by Nate Berkus collection includes a mattress offered in plush and extra firm, down pillows and a mattress protector. The mattress cover, made from Seaqual fabric made from plastic bottles sourced from oceans, is a signature Berkus design with a subtle nod to the herringbone pattern. The mattress is made with zone pocket coil technology, cooling properties, memory foam and antimicrobial protection.
The Berkus partnership feels different. Like its HGTV counterparts, the Scott Brothers, who have a mattress line with Restonic, Berkus knows home and design well. He understands how families long to make a house a home.
In my conversation with him, he shared with me that he has spent much of his design career advising clients and viewers to spend their money wisely and buy a used carpet that can be cleaned, or lighting that is new can be wired and brought to new life.
“Every other category in the house can be recovered,” Berkus said. “Upholstery and mattresses are the two things you should almost always buy new. A mattress is something you spend your money on and quality is important. Your mattress is your mattress and it is an important foundation.”
Another central element of the collection that appealed to him: the sustainability component.
Berkus said the sustainability aspect resonates throughout its design aesthetic. He called it irresponsible not to use and install the Seaqual covers in the product. The queen mattress contains 50 plastic bottles fished from the sea.
So why a mattress collection and why now? Berkus says he doesn’t function on less than eight hours of sleep a night. He’s busy — designing homes, filming for The Nate and Jeremiah Home Project, husband and father of two children under 10 — and sleep drives him.
And maybe, just maybe, the biggest reason comes from the youngest in the Berkus-Brent household: The 4-year-old, who Berkus said insisted mattresses should have springs, gave the bed a test bounce and told him the right amount bounce
Done deal!