About The Modern Dane

Rooted in Denmark, Inspired by the Pacific Northwest

Founder Jacob Andsager grew up in Broager, a small coastal town in southern Denmark, surrounded by water, forests, farmland, and the changing seasons. After moving to the U.S. in 2002, he spent a decade in Chicago—a city he still holds dear—before moving to Seattle in 2012.

The Pacific Northwest felt immediately familiar. The water, forests, muted light, and deep connection to nature echoed something Jacob remembered from Denmark.

At the same time, living so far from home made him increasingly aware of the Scandinavian ideas he had grown up with: an appreciation for natural materials, thoughtful design, and the belief that the objects we use every day can quietly improve our surroundings. That eventually sparked an idea: to use the duvet cover as a canvas for nature-inspired design, bringing a sense of Scandinavian calm and craftsmanship into the bedroom.

“We spend a third of our lives in bed, and a duvet cover is one of the largest uninterrupted surfaces in a bedroom. I started thinking about it as a canvas—something that could bring nature and design into the room without overwhelming it.”

The patterns Jacob imagined were not traditional Scandinavian motifs. Instead, he wanted them to feel like personal interpretations of the Nordic landscape: branches, leaves, wildflowers, birds, and the subdued colors of nature. He had a clear idea of what he wanted the bedding to look and feel like. What he didn’t yet know was how to make it.

Rethinking Bedding from the Field Up

What began as a design idea quickly became an education in textiles. Jacob initially assumed the collection would be made from cotton, but the more he learned about conventional cotton production, the more he questioned whether it was the right foundation for a new bedding company. Cotton requires substantial irrigation and agricultural inputs, including pesticides and fertilizers, and parts of the global cotton supply chain have also been associated with poor labor conditions, low wages, and limited worker protections. Its environmental and human cost seemed increasingly at odds with the kind of business he wanted to build.

His research kept leading him back to European-grown flax. In the temperate climate of Western Europe, flax can be grown largely with rainfall and generally requires fewer agricultural inputs than conventional cotton. As it grows, flax also captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, meaning the crop acts as a natural carbon sink during its growing cycle. The plant makes efficient use of the land as well: its fibers become linen, while other parts of the crop can be used for products ranging from linseed oil to animal feed.

For Jacob, linen offered a compelling combination of lower-impact agriculture, European provenance, durability, and natural beauty. Flax fibers are exceptionally strong and breathable, and the resulting fabric becomes softer and more relaxed with use and washing rather than losing its character. It also looked completely different from the smooth, uniform bedding that dominated the market.

“I fell in love with linen because it brought everything together. Flax could be grown with far less water and fewer agricultural inputs than conventional cotton, it captured carbon as it grew, and it offered a more responsible production story. Then there was the fabric itself—the strength, breathability, texture, and the way it becomes softer and more beautiful with use. It felt like the rare material where sustainability, quality, and design genuinely aligned.”

The Modern Dane has used European linen ever since. Today, our linen begins with flax grown in Belgium, France, and The Netherlands certified through Masters of FLAX FIBRE™. Our finished bedding is OEKO-TEX® Standard 100 Class 1 certified, the standard’s most stringent product class to ensure no harmful chemicals are used in the production.

A Trip to Portugal

In 2018, with sketches, ideas, and an increasing amount of textile knowledge, Jacob traveled to Guimarães in northern Portugal in search of someone who could actually make the bedding he had imagined. The trip took him to a textile trade show held inside a centuries-old monastery, where he met a Portuguese manufacturer willing to work with a very small new American bedding company and help turn an idea into a finished collection. That relationship became the beginning of The Modern Dane.

Northern Portugal has a long textile tradition, with generations of expertise in weaving, printing, finishing, cutting, and sewing concentrated within the region. It gave Jacob the opportunity to develop the collection closely with the people actually making it, refining everything from the weight and feel of the linen to the construction details of each piece.

Our bedding is still made in Portugal today. The linen is woven there, our patterns are printed there, and every piece is garment-washed, cut, and sewn there before making its way to us in Seattle. We use a 165 GSM linen: substantial enough to feel reassuring and durable, while remaining breathable, relaxed, and comfortable against the skin.

A Tribute to Scandinavian Nature

The first Modern Dane designs grew directly from Jacob’s memories of Scandinavia and his fascination with the natural world. Rather than creating patterns that felt obviously “Nordic,” he wanted something quieter: a branch, a seed pod, a cluster of leaves, or a bird partly hidden among them. The linen itself was always meant to remain part of the design.

“The fabric has so much character on its own that I never wanted the prints to completely cover it. The design and the linen have to work together.”

That philosophy still guides the collection today. Some of our bedding is patterned and some is solid, but all of it shares the same idea: natural materials, restrained design, and colors that are easy to live with.

The landscapes of Denmark and the Pacific Northwest continue to influence the brand. They are not the same, but they share qualities Jacob is naturally drawn to: water, forests, subdued colors, changing light, and a strong connection between the home and the natural world outside it.

Building the Kind of Company We Would Want to Buy From

The Modern Dane has always been a small, independent business, and that shapes how we operate. We sell directly to our customers, which allows us to invest more in materials and craftsmanship while avoiding traditional retail markups. We produce in relatively small quantities, use recyclable and thoughtfully designed packaging, and work closely with the people making our bedding.

Being a small direct-to-consumer company also means we hear directly from the people sleeping in it. Some of Jacob’s favorite messages come from customers who have redesigned an entire bedroom around one of our patterns, returned years later for another piece, or simply written to say how much they look forward to getting into bed at night.

“There are thousands of people sleeping under our linen now, which still feels slightly surreal to me. When I started, I was thinking about fabric, design, and sustainability. What I didn’t fully anticipate was how personal bedding is. You’re making something that becomes part of people’s homes and their routines every single day.”

That experience has come to define The Modern Dane as much as the original idea did: creating things for the home that bring together thoughtful design, natural materials, skilled craftsmanship, and the comfort of something you genuinely enjoy living with every day.

Jacob Andsager
Founder, The Modern Dane