Our sofas get an awful lot more wear and tear than they used to do thirty years ago. If you look at any TV advertisement selling sofas you see people jumping on them, lying down on them or curled up with their feet on them. All this would have been unthinkable once as sofas were designed to be sat on and only sat on. All the rough treatment they get these days means that they get far dirtier than they once would and consequently they look shabby much more quickly.