Luxury Bedding: What is a Comforter’s “drop?”

Drop is the distance that a piece of bedding hangs over the side of the bed. A comforter’s drop measures the distance between the top of the mattress and the bottom of the comforter. A bedskirt’s drop measures the distance between the top of the box spring or platform and the bottom of the bed skirt.

You want to think about drop when buying any new piece of bedding. Take into account the height of your mattress when considering how far the bedding will fall over the side of your bed. Will it cover the side of your mattress? How will that look?

For example, many inexpensive down comforters are made 86” x 86” queen size. A queen size mattress measures 60” x 80” across, so the drop will be 13” on both sides and 6” at the foot. So the comforter will fit up to a 13” mattress on the sides, but only 6” on the foot. You could pull the comforter down below the pillows when you make the bed to give extra length at the foot. Or you may have a footboard covering the foot of the bed making the drop less important. But if you have a thick mattress 13” – 22”, in style today, you will need a larger comforter to cover it.

An oversize down comforter, measuring 90”x98” queen size would drop either 15” on the sides and 18” at the foot, or turned the other way, 19” on the sides and 10” at the foot. This would cover a mattress up to 19”. Many people with thick mattresses chose either an oversized comforter or a larger size, such as a king size for their queen size bed.