I'd give the Iconic I more credit than the three Staples rungs below it, because this is the first one where paying more gets you something other than additional mini springs. It suits a buyer who wants natural fillings in a bed they will look after, and the catch arrives immediately: 37cm. That's a lot of mattress to find sheets for and a lot of mattress to turn.
This is the first rung where the money buys something real
Three things change going up to the Iconic I, and all three are things you can point at. A third row of true hand side-stitching instead of two. A guarantee that runs longer than the Signature rungs get. And some of the British wool in it is certified organic to GOTS, the Global Organic Textile Standard, which is an independent textile scheme with third-party certification behind it.
That last one matters more to me than it sounds. Organic and eco on a mattress label mean precisely nothing until somebody shows me a certificate, and I ask every time. Here there's a named standard, which is more than most manage. Keep its edges straight, mind: the scheme is named against the wool, not stamped across the whole bed, so judge everything else on how it's built. Mohair and horsehair come into the filling list on this rung too, alongside the cotton, flax, bamboo, Lyocell and lambswool.
37cm is the reason to measure before you fall for it
Measure the pocket on your fitted sheets with a tape, not by the word printed on the packaging, because plenty of deep-pocket sheets give up well before 37cm and you need enough left over to tuck under. Then add 37cm to your base and measure up from the floor. Sitting on the edge of your bed with your feet flat stops being something you can take for granted at this depth.
Its Belgian damask cover mixes viscose with Lyocell, and the spec calls it soft, which a damask with Lyocell in it usually is. A scratchy label in a nightdress is enough to keep me awake, so the cover is one of the first things I read on a spec. It will not rescue you from a sheet stretched so tight it pings off the corner at two in the morning.
Treat the turn as a two-person job and arrange the second person before you buy, not after. The flag-stitched handles help you steer it and do nothing about the weight. Avoid a mattress this deep and this turnable if the turning is never going to happen, because then you have paid for a second face you'll never lie on.
The part of it holding you up never changed
Twelve thousand two hundred springs, and 1,200 of them are full height. Everything else is minis padding out the layers you lie on. So whatever else this rung improves, and it does improve things, the springs taking your weight are the springs the cheapest bed in the range has, which is where I stop short of calling it a confident buy. No wire gauge is published anywhere either. Ring Bensons and make them confirm the full-height count and the gauge in writing before you pay this much for a mattress nobody has reviewed yet.
What to buy instead
The Hypnos Luxurious Earth 04 sits in the same shop and it is where I'd look first, because Hypnos builds to this standard; price both in your size before you decide. One warning: the Earth 04 comes in Medium or Firmer, so there's no Soft to swap to if that was the grade you were eyeing up. Lie on both in the grade you'd actually order.
