It was almost curtains for her beloved Tara, and Scarlett O`Hara wanted to conceal her desperate straits from Rhett Butler. When she visited him to entice him to lend her money, she wore a velvet and satin gown with matching bonnet and handbag. The stunning ensemble was stitched from the magnificent emerald living room drapes removed from Tara`s windows.
It was 50 years ago last July that film audiences first caught that glimpse of window treatments in a major supporting role. Today window treatments star not only in the living room but throughout the house.
The window is one of the most evocative elements of a room architecturally and psychologically. A window may cheer even a drab space just because of the natural light it admits.
When a window shows a pretty view, you may prefer that it go bare. But more often, for practical considerations such as warmth, privacy and blocking an ugly view or simply for the sake of fashion, you`ll want to cover it. In today`s design-conscious world, how you dress your window may affect the style of a room.
As a decorating tool, window treatments can:
– Change the proportion of a space. They can elongate a low-ceilinged room when hung from the ceiling.
– Mask uneven proportions or bad moldings. They can team up mismatched windows.
– Make small windows look important or even become focal points.
– Add width to narrow windows by extending the outside frame.
– Add color, introduce pattern and texture, or change the light.
In styling, we`ve gone well beyond basic Venetian blinds and pinch-pleated drapes. Now there are window wardrobes that include everything from minis and micros (blinds) to voluminous formals (curtains) that may be embellished with all sorts of festive trims, such as piping, tassels, ruffles, borders and fringe, much the way upholstered furniture is attired. Often several styles that normally stand alone show up on the same window, each style with certain frills.
A finished room
”The well-dressed window is back,” said Meri Stevens, vice president and design director of Waverly Fabrics. ”The interest in traditional treatments such as swags and jabots, Austrian, Roman and pleated shades and poufy balloon shades has added a new ambiance to a room that in the past had a simpler, pared-down look. In today`s marketplace, the decorated window is a signal of a finished room.
”There are so many quick-change looks for the window. In many cases it takes very little sewing. It can be something as simple as sewing a straight line and putting a hem on fabric to do an informal swag.”
The simplest window treatments may be as inexpensive as the cost of a decorative pole, draped with a lace cloth that belonged to Grandma. Or they can run thousands of dollars for the multilayered, custom-designed looks that use fabrics costing several hundred dollars a yard. The consumer seems willing to budget a little more for windows today.
The layered look has become the fashion for windows. By no means a new concept, voluminous drapes and tiers of window treatments were the standard in the Napoleonic era. ”In the late 17th to the early 19th Century in France, window treatments were absolutely amazing-endless layers,” said interior designer and author Mary Gilliatt.
For the last two years, the Spiegel Collection home-furnishings catalog has focused on artful window treatments inspired by the past, such as a roped and tasseled cascading swag over a pair of panels sewn of a crinkled, cream-colored polyester that puddles gracefully on the floor.
Also available, from Spiegel and others, are decorative rings to create a smashing, sophisticated designer look. The simple how-to is a matter of ordering the precise amount of fabric and draping it through gargoyle rings made of brass. The rings, which are 4 1/4 inches in diameter with the head 3 inches high, are finished in clear lacquer and cost $15 each.
Window dressing is by no means limited to a particular decorating style. Streamlined or tailored, romantic French, English, American or Scandinavian country and luxe neoclassic European fashions are out there in a wealth of interpretations. What makes it exciting and sometimes confusing for today`s consumer is that some of the more dramatic looks, which used to be limited only to those who could afford expensive custom treatments, now are available off the rack in a wide range of fabric choices and prices.
As with mix-and-match clothing or coordinated home furnishings, the guesswork has been taken away. Curtain and drapery manufacturers have put together entire bedroom ensembles, for example, that offer coordinating bedspreads, sheets, comforters, shams, ruffles and several styles of draperies, valances, festoons and balloons.
Home-furnishings magazines as well as mail-order catalogs provide a wealth of information about current fashions in windows by way of their appealing illustrations, often accompanied by invaluable how-to information.
For do-it-yourselfers
For those who sew, there are easy-to-follow patterns that offer varying degrees of moods, sophistication and showiness. The Butterick Co. features a variety of valance and fancy shade patterns under its Butterick and Vogue pattern lines.
The trend toward more elegant window dressing has affected blinds as well. Though miniblinds and then microminis remained a popular `80s decorating choice because of their clean lines and always-expanding color and stain options, designers have begun to frame them with cornices, poufy valances, swags and curtains. And consumers seem to be irresistibly drawn to more classical, even dressy window treatments that reflect a turn to opulence as well as comfort in home interiors.
”Quite frankly, fabric and a more formal look is the trend,” said Jack Long, president and chief executive officer of more than 300 Spring Crest Drapery Centers worldwide. Spring Crest centers, which stock several thousand fabrics and a wide range of window coverings such as miniblinds, verticals and pleated shades, are a source for custom drapes that are comparable in price to those of J.C. Penney and Co. and Sears Roebuck and Co.
”We have found that our miniblind customers now are coming back to dress them up, to soften what is functional but somewhat stark,” Long said. ”A lot of people work in cold surroundings all day long. When they come home they want comfort.”
Gilliatt is convinced that the more decorated look will continue.
”There`s also a general fondness for the past. This will perhaps continue to the beginning of the next century.”
It is appropriate now, when window coverings reflect the past, that the Scarlett O`Hara gown created from Tara drapes has been immortalized on an heirloom doll with a porcelain face and genuine diamond and emerald jewelry. The price: $495. If you should tire of the gown, you can always transform it into drapes for a doll house.
Sources: The Butterick Pattern Co., 161 Avenue of the Americas/8th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10013, 800-221-2670; Joanna, 2141 S. Jefferson St., Chicago, Ill. 60616, 800-JOANNA-O; Spiegel, 1040 W. 35th St., Chicago, Ill. 60609-1494, 312-954-2772; Spring Crest Drapery Centers, Spring Crest Co., 505 W. Lambert Rd., Brea, Calif. 92621, 800-552-5523; Waverly, a Division of F. Schumacher, 79 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016, 212-213-7900 (ask for Waverly Public Relations Department). ”You`re at Home with Waverly,” an idea book filled with quick decorating ideas, is available for $2.
