Last month, our Managing Director at Innovation Living Melbourne, Tom Lancashire, took a trip back to the Motherland; visiting Innovation’s Danish headquarters to check out some of the new models, and talk to the Head Designers about some ideas for the Australian market.

Tom’s Itinerary:

Flew in to Copenhagen, and spent a few days visiting furniture stores (and bakeries!), two of the things the Danish do best!

Tom then caught the train to Randers, a city a couple of hundred kilometres North-West of Copenhagen, where the Innovation Head Office, factory and storage facility are located. Innovation’s Randers factory is in fact the only large-scale warehouse that distributes products throughout Europe.

Here, Tom was shown around by Innovation CEO Morten Lind, and had the opportunity to sit in on a photo shoot of the Splitback Frej with Head Designer Per Weiss. They were developing a video to present at a Norwegian trade fair – which you can check out on YouTube.

One of the impressive things about the Randers’ factory is that the foam and soft-spring mattresses are made there on-site; using 100% recycled foam that is shredded and glued into huge blocks, before being cut to size to fit above sprung mattresses. This is a key component to Innovation’s Environmental Credentials.

After touring the facilities, Tom had a chance to meet with the Danish Design Team, and presented a few ideas we have developed from our Australian customer needs, namely:

• An increase in feather-top options for deluxe sofa comfort
• Mattress toppers for all sizes (which are now available!)
• Designs more appropriate to holiday homes and Air BnBs – including less moving parts, interchangeable covers, metal frames over timber legs
• More options in compact sofas, extended on our Cubed range.

The next stop for Tom was Aarhus, the closest big city to Randers, where he visited a few museums, and dropped in on a bunch of retail stores that either stocked Innovation’s products, or other sofa bed that are currently popular throughout Denmark and Scandinavia – from which Tom noted:

“The really interesting thing to note was that the design style of Denmark is heading towards Industrial styling. In Australian and in particular Melbourne we are in the midst of a mid-century and Scandinavian craze. So what we may see in the future is a move towards more industrial styled designs… something that we’ll keep a look out for.”

 Tom rounded off his trip with a couple of days in Shanghai at the Chinese International Furniture Fair, which was a great opportunity to check out some new designs, as well as meet up with some of the Innovation agents from Europe, America and Asia, and talk to them about trends in their regions…

“Understanding the global feel of Innovation is important as it helps us to then provide the best designs practical to our customers.”

Watch this space for more news, updates and developments around the Innovation Living Melbourne products!