Three generations of furniture-making traditions
The furniture-making traditions in our family stretch back three generations. Grandpa Arnold, on our mum’s side, worked at the Viisnurk furniture factory in Pärnu and made all his own furniture in his woodshed in Tammiste for his home and summer cottage.
From a relatively unforgiving raw material he fashioned beautiful armchairs and children’s toys that are still in the family today. “We loved watching him work,” says Softrend CEO Joonatan, Arnold’s grandson. “It was so exciting. We couldn’t wait for him to get home from work and finish eating so that we could go out and join him in the woodshed.”
In the 1990s, Joonatan’s father Aldo started importing furniture from Finland and selling it at the Tallinna Kaubamaja department store. With the money he earned from it he fulfilled his dream of building his own factory, which at first produced an item that was particularly popular in the 1990s – the waterbed.
“I didn’t really have the money or the resources I needed, but I definitely had the get-up-and-go,” Aldo says. “I knew I could make things myself, more beautiful than the stuff I was getting from Finland as well. And from start to finish at that – from cutting down the trees out in the forest to delivering the finished sofa to the client’s home.”
Quality craftsmanship that people value
There can be no better teachers than experience and clientele. A contract for a demanding Swedish client taught the company early on the standards that Northern European design is held to – standards to which Softrend adheres to this day. A friend of the family’s complained recently that the sofa they bought from Softrend 20 years ago was still as good as new but that they were bored of it and wanted a change.
All of our furniture is still hand-made by 35 master craftsmen in our factory in Vääna near Tallinn, and that’s a tradition we’re determined to maintain.
Timeless, sustainable design
Because we make our furniture to order, we know how important the right sofa is. The second big step in our company’s development came in 2005 when we opened our showroom on Rävala Avenue in Tallinn and started producing pieces in the sizes and shapes and styles our clients asked for. From this we learned what makes a sofa the right sofa, and within a few years we’d started developing our collection.
In recent years our designs have been influenced by Argo Tamm, who always aims to create products with a timeless appearance and durable, long-lasting technical features that will still be beautiful 10 years down the line.
Public space supporting your need to focus
Our furniture is suited just as much to offices as it is to people’s homes. We took a major step forward in 2018 when we worked with Iseasi designers Pent Talvet and Martin Pärn to devise a public space concept and collection that we then started to actively export. Furniture tailor-made for offices and public space supports innovative new ways of working, and thanks to its design and acoustic qualities it also helps people focus on what’s important.
Great design in everyday things
The way we see it, design should be available to everyone, first and foremost as part of our everyday lives – waking up in a comfortable bed, drinking your morning coffee from your favourite cup, having the supplies you need to make your workday easier, sitting around the dining table enjoying time with your friends and lounging on the sofa engrossed in a book. That’s why you’ll find a wide range of lifestyle products in our showroom as well – items that will help make your day-to-day lives more enjoyable.
Great design isn’t just beautiful to look at, but actually makes life better!
Read more
Meet our team >
Public space concept >
Sustainability >
Quality standard >