Curtain fabrics

Curtain fabric works harder in an American house than in the European rooms these weaves were drawn for: wider windows, glass closer to the floor, a great room with one whole wall of daylight. Scale is why weight and fall matter more here than pattern. Everything is cut by the meter to your window, not to a store's stock panel length.

Buying curtain fabric by the meter, not the yard

A meter is 39.4 in (1 m), three inches longer than a yard, so American yardage habits overshoot a little. Work backward from the pleat, not the window. A single pleat asks the window width plus half again; a wave or deep double pleat climbs toward two and a half times it. Across a 96 in (2.44 m) slider that gap is several meters, so settle the pleat before the color.

Curtain fabric in an open floor plan

Open plans put windows in conversation. Where kitchen, dining area and seating share one sightline, three separate treatments read as noise; one weave across all of them quiets the room. Save the bolder design for a room that closes, and let a plain fabric carry the long views. Under a 10 ft (3.05 m) ceiling, velvet and dense jacquard have the mass to hold a fold at that height.

Weights and weaves, and how much light gets past

Linen is where most people land: irregular enough to read as woven rather than printed, and better after a few years than on day one. Velvet holds light in the pile and deepens as the drop gets taller. A cotton-linen blend gives you body and softness at once. An open linen or a voile hangs as a sheer without shutting the view down. The range sits in luxury fabrics, Casamance and Elitis among the houses, and many weaves repeat in the color family of our upholstery and cushion fabrics.

Lining, blackout and west-facing glass

A lining gives the panel body, slows heat loss and keeps sun off the face cloth. That last job counts for more on a west-facing wall of glass than a narrow European window, so budget for one even in rooms you never need dark. Bedrooms are where blackout earns its place. Linen can shrink a fraction or settle over a season, so order past the finished drop and let a workroom measure anything over 108 in (2.74 m).

Samples, shipping and duties

Hold a sample up in the room itself, at the hour you actually use it: daylight in Seattle and daylight in Phoenix do different things to one weave. Look at it hanging and lit from behind, never flat on a table. If the wall behind it will carry textile wallpaper, judge the two side by side. Care advice sits on the label; most of these cloths are best dry-cleaned. Orders ship from Europe with duties, import fees and taxes paid, so nothing is collected at your door; our specialists stay with it from sample to cut.