Stearns & Foster is one of the three companies of Tempur-Sealy International which was formed by the merger of Tempur-Pedic and Sealy. Stearns & Foster, with a revamped product line, was given its own website April 2014. The new taglines for Stearns & Foster are "Indulgent Comfort" and "Authentic Craftsmanship."
The following is from the Stearns & Foster home page on the Sealy website in 2013:
Stearns & Foster opened in 1846 when the company was founded by George S. Stearns and Seth C. Foster in Cincinnati, Ohio. They were makers of fine upholstery for high-end horse drawn carriages. Stearns was the inventor of a new process for cotton bunting, which provided a more comfortable alternative to the upholstery used at the time.
Seth Foster recognized that the emerging bedding market was an ideal place to expand use of Stearns & Foster’s cotton technology. As with their other products, the company focused on making only the very best mattresses.
By the early 1920’s, the company had built its reputation on the manufacturing of top-of-the-line luxury mattresses sold in the most discriminating of retailers.
The superior product positioning helped Stearns & Foster gain exclusive partnerships with high-end retailers, such as Marshall Field & Co. in Chicago, Bloomingdale’s in New York and Sterns Department Stores in New Jersey, while competitors were forced to sell in more down-scale retailers.
Stearns and Foster consists of three main mattress lines. The top of the line Estate Innerspring Mattress is luxurious on both the inside and out. This innerspring mattress has Stearns and Foster Intellicoil on the inside. The practical Luxury Innerspring collection has individually wrapped coils for affordable luxury. The Latex collection represents Stearns & Foster’s alternative mattress sleep sets which are all made with the smart latex foam core.
Although acquired by Sealy in 1983, Stearns & Foster still lives up to the rich heritage of luxury that is the hallmark of the brand.
Currently, Stearns and Foster has four mattress collections: Signature, Estate, Lux Estate, and Lux Estate Hybrid. The Signature Collection is the simplest, though still a luxury collection. Each of the following collections is a step up, in both features and price, from the preceding collection. About all of its mattresses, Stearns & Foster says, "From soft touch indulgent fabrics, to hand-tufted finishes, to the springs themselves, every aspect of a Stearns & Foster is designed to provide indulgent comfort from top to bottom."
The description of each of the collections gives the starting price of a queen-size mattress set. The individual models of these collections are not listed on the S&F site, but the wide distribution makes it easy to find these models in retailers' stores or on their websites. The materials used in each Signature Collection mattress are listed on the Signature page. After this list is a description of each of the listed materials. The description for the following collection, Estate, says it "includes the features of the Signature Collection, but improves upon or adds" materials which are then listed. This continues with each of the remaining collections. The site also has an explanation of each of the comfort/support levels.
At the 2016 Las Vegas Winter Market, luxury mattress manufacturer Stearns & Foster unveiled upgrades to its product line. Specifically, these involve enhancements to three of its existing collections and the introduction of a new collection. Also revealed was national television advertising, a first for S&F.
According to a Stearns & Foster press release, the upgrades are in four areas – coils, edge support, cover fabric, and memory foam:
•IntelliCoil® Advanced Coil Design
•PrecisionEdge™ System
•PrimaCool™ Performance Fabric
•Advanced Adapt™ Foam
For years, Stearns & Foster mattresses have relied for support on a coil-in-coil design patented by Sealy, an affiliated company. The IntelliCoil® Advanced Coil Design is a newer version of the existing IntelliCoil® Encased Coils. This coil configuration, engineered to adapt to any body size and weight, have been re-engineered to be more adaptable.
The PrecisionEdge™ System is a border of high-density coils around the mattress edge. It is designed to provide enough edge support for the sleeping surface without users feeling like they are on a wall.
PrimaCool is a performance fabric designed to keep the sleeping surface cool and dry. It features Tencel fibers to wick moisture away and increase breathability. Softness and smoothness in the cover is augmented by the addition of silk and cashmere.
This is an enhancement of the Sealy/Stearns & Foster Adapt Foam, a proprietary version of memory foam.
The new Reserve Collection features what S&F labels a "hybrid pillowtop." In the pillow top section of the mattress, layers of Advance Adapt Foam alternate with layers of mini-coils and micro-coils in what is called Nano Comfort. Here is evidence that the company has paid attention to customer reviews. For some time, many customers have complained of sagging. This has almost always been in the upper layers, dominated by comfort foams. The role of the layers of small coils is to enhance the integrity of the top foam layers. These coils also have the added property of increased internal airflow at the top of the mattress for more cooling and freshness.
Stay tuned for market release of the new and upgraded Stearns & Foster collections. Updating of the collections' reviews will follow.