“I always sleep with a duvet as I like feeling some weight on me, but it’s always been tricky to find one that has the right weight without causing me to overheat. This one is the perfect balance. It breathes as well as insulates. Magic.” – Constance Jaeggi O’Connor, photographic artist

If luxury is now about craft and artisanship, and sleep is one of the ultimate luxuries, then everyone needs to get to know Binith Shah’s Umō Paris and its sustainable, ethereal duvets

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In an era when celebrated luxury brands are selling increasingly mass-produced goods to millions of people, where do you connoisseurs of true luxury go? Towards craft, towards artisans with a niche focus on thoughtful quality combined, ideally, with a responsibility to the planet in creating products that do not harm it.

The company’s Eider ducks living freely in a protected area of Iceland

This nod towards “natural capital” – a term that will be familiar to readers of our sustainability-special sections in LUX – in combination with a relentless pursuit of the highest possible quality has been applied to a few different sectors, from champagne to clothing.

Read more: Linder through the highball glass

And now it’s being applied to arguably one of the most important yet neglected areas of everyone’s lives: sleep.

A portrait of Binith Shah, Umō Paris founder and CEO

Binith Shah, an entrepreneur based in Paris, wants to ensure that you get the best possible night’s sleep, whether that’s at home, on your holidays or on your plane. He is doing so by creating the world’s most luxurious duvets, with luxury defined not in how ornate they are but by sheer quality of product – and its sustainability.

Umō Paris duvets are made from the down of Eider ducks who roam freely in the wilds of a sanctuary in Iceland (umō means down in Japanese). The female Eider naturally moults the down from her breast plate, and it is gently gathered from her nest. The duvets are then hand-stitched by craftsmen in Chablis, France.

The Eider duck wing motif that features on each duvet

Availability is bound by nature itself: the rare Eiderdown, gathered once a year in limited supply, defines the exclusivity of Umō’s work. But as the testimonials from customers here show, it might be the most important purchase you had never thought of making.

Read more: Inside Milan with Francesco Maccapani Missoni

Next up, Shah wants to expand the positive energy he is bringing to other areas of the world of sleep. More anon and sweet dreams in the meantime.

A specialist artisan prepares the Eiderdown ready to make Umō Paris duvets in Chablis, France

“I always sleep with a duvet as I like feeling some weight on me, but it’s always been tricky to find one that has the right weight without causing me to overheat. This one is the perfect balance. It breathes as well as insulates. Magic.”

umo-paris.com

Photography by Constance Jaeggi O’Connor

UMŌ’s purveyor and partner Eider duck sanctuary is located in Iceland’s Fljótin, Skagafjörður, under the dedicated stewardship of one family over three generations, spanning over 80 years

Entrepreneur Binith Shah is on a mission to create the ultimate sleep experience. How? By using the rarest Eider duck feathers, gathered painstakingly and sustainably in a sanctuary in Iceland, and then having craftspeople integrate them into the best duvets in the world in Chablis, central France. Shah talks LUX through what inspires him, and takes us on a photographic voyage through the process of his craft

“One unforgettable night, I experienced the most restorative sleep imaginable, enveloped in a duvet that seemed to float above me. It was airy, plush, and perfectly temperate, as though I were cocooned in tranquility. From that moment, I was driven to share such an experience with the world.

The search led me to a rare and precious natural resource, one deeply tied to sustainability, conservation, and respect for the artisan’s hand. I partnered with a third-generation, ethical Eider duck sanctuary owner in Iceland and a B-Corp certified atelier in France that share our reverence for precision and detail. When I learned that the Japanese word for down is umō, I felt an immediate kinship with their design philosophy—pure, elevated, and intentional. From this harmony, UMŌ Paris was born.

Each duvet is a quiet masterpiece, marked only by a tonal feather embroidery – an unspoken tribute to the craftsmanship within. My hope is simple: that your sleep is transformed, as mine has been, by the unparalleled beauty of UMŌ.”

The undulating wetlands within the sanctuary provide ducks and their nests’ shelter from the frigid winds off the sea– as well as protect them against predators. The sanctuary caretakers create flagged gridlines and yellow mesh balls as visual cues to easily navigate the nests.

A stunning close-up of the Eider duck’s precious sea mist-hued eggs cradled by the supple down that naturally molts from her breast. The incubation period takes less than one month.

Tiny, vulnerable ducklings leave the nest soon after they hatch. They are typically led to the water by their mother, often with other females joining to form a “crèche” to protect them.

UMŌ’s third-generation caretaker and partner begins to sort through the valuable raw Eiderdown gathered from the nests and sanctuary grounds.

A close-up of the airy, hypoallergenic, and hypothermic Eiderdown being cleaned by hand to remove twigs, feathers, and other debris. It takes 65 hours to hand clean every 2.2 kilos of Eider down, and nearly 9,000 hours from nest to final duvet. This skilled, heritage craft, coupled with Eiderdown’s scarcity as dictated by nature, creates the ultimate in natural rarity value.

A tranquil view of the Armançon River from the La Compagnie Dumas offices, flowing alongside the historic Tonnerre-based, B-Corp Certified atelier, where tradition and craftsmanship intersect in the heart of Burgundy.

Rare Eiderdown is carefully stored in a secure, climate-controlled safe to preserve its exceptional qualities and provenance.

Covers are expertly sewn by hand using a cotton sateen, created exclusively for use with Pure Arctic Eiderdown, ensuring complete traceability.

Each duvet is measured by hand.

All duvet covers are hand-cut in the workshops.

Spools of thread await the bourdon stitch — a decorative, dense seam that has become a distinctive signature of the atelier’s craftsmanship.

A seamstress assembles each duvet cover.

Following the quilting, each duvet undergoes a final quality control process.

The atelier uses time-honoured wicker tools to distribute filling evenly — a slow, manual technique that preserves the loft and comfort of the duvet.

As another nod to the art of the detail, fine embroidery bearing the UMŌ Paris wing logo is applied, symbolising the alliance between heritage craftsmanship and contemporary design.

Each piece is finalised with the UMŌ Paris label — the bespoke touch of La Compagnie Dumas artisans.

As this woman deep in REM sleep will attest when she awakes, there is nothing like the sleep you get when enveloped in UMŌ, the best duvet in the world.

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