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Among the artisanal treasures on display at Villa Borsani, the resplendent family home conceived by Italian modernist Osvaldo Borsani stands out surprisingly: the curtains. Located in a quiet suburb on the northern edge of Milan, and opened during this year’s Alcova design exhibition, the residence has an elevated living room with 4m windows from which hang ethereal curtains as delicate as a spider’s web. Custom created locally in Brianza when the house was completed during the 1940s, they cast exquisite shadows that dance across the geometric parquet floor.
“They represented the special and the handmade, and gave a much richer effect than a flat panel of fabric in a window,” says Ambra Medda, who curated an exhibition at the villa in 2018. Known in Italian as tend to reteVoile curtains or curtains are being revalued in the world of design. He 3 days of design The fair held in Copenhagen in June was awash in vaporous beauty. And in Sweden they are a very accepted tradition. “Everyone I visit in Stockholm these days has curtains. I love its simplicity,” says Tobias Vernon of the design gallery. 8 Holland Street. “If you walk down the city streets at night, the houses glow from the inside out.”
Unlike heavy velvets or linens, sheers give the feeling of being protected, rather than totally isolated from the outside world. They are nostalgic, but also playful. fashion designer Giambattista Valli She has printed Indian portraits on the veils in the dressing room of her Paris apartment. AND Rosa Uniacke has used the tapestry art of Simone Prouvé, known as the weaver of light, to protect the bathroom window in the renovated garage of her Pimlico home. On the top floor of 8 Holland Street Townhouse in Bath, a sash window is dressed with a grid-shaped curtain in acid green Kvadrat.
“It’s kind of a play on how nasty networks were viewed in the old days,” Vernon says. “There is definitely a backlash against their bad reputation for outdated bungalows. But they have come out the other side.”
Stine Find Osther, vice president of design at Kvadrat, agrees: “For decades, sheers were considered super old-fashioned and granny-style. But in recent years they have been used more freely again.” Osther sees sheer textiles as a kind of “soft architecture” that can help transform and adapt a space effortlessly. They are a way to introduce color and, more importantly, also soften harsh, minimalist architecture. “People move into these big, minimalist rooms, which are beautiful but a little inhumane,” Osther says. Kvadrat’s Transparent Reflect fabric is so crystalline that it is barely noticeable. However, even that creates a protective shield. “Too much free space behind you in a workspace can make you feel unsafe.”
The right casement blind has the power to lift. Arne Aksel Jensen is dedicated to persuading its Scandinavian clients to change their palettes beyond beiges and grays. “I call it Scandinavian depression and I want to fight against it,” says the founder of Arne Aksel Textiles. “There is a spirituality in the colors we bring into our homes. They affect you. Color has the ability to change us positively.” The brand’s most popular non-gray shades for sheers are now mint (suggesting eternal spring) and a pale pink shade called Blossom. In open-plan rooms, Jensen employs what he calls “sliding doors,” using a curtain hanging from the ceiling to divide the space. Perhaps the most dramatic yet simple evocation of this approach (albeit all-white) is the Curtain Wall House by Shigeru Ban Architects. Completed in 1995, the apartment in Japan has exterior walls adorned with airy fabrics inspired by traditional shoji screens and fusuma doors.
“People are obsessed with views and light, but actually the most beautiful and flattering thing is filtered light,” says the London-based interior designer. joanna plantwhich frequently displays Volga linenespecially in south-facing rooms, such as cafe curtains or transparent blinds. Pretty antique lace or antique linen panels, hung from a tension rod, can transform a window without even turning on a drill.
Gemma Moulton’s company. East London Fabric was born from the demand for simple linen cafe curtains that arose during Covid. “During that era, everyone wanted to work by a window and not be spied on,” says Moulton, who prefers a minimally gathered fabric treatment. Her CC Moulton fabric house creates silk-blend woven linens in a factory near where she grew up in Sudbury. “Too many flourishes detract from the nuance of the fabric,” Moulton says. “A transparent fabric hanging in a window allows you to really appreciate its beauty.”
Our longing for privacy, of course, is nothing new. In Europe, so-called curtains under curtains evolved in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. They often featured fringes and decoration, protecting the lavish art and furniture from the sun’s glare. According to Danielle Patten, director of creative programs and collections at the Home Museum In Hoxton, London, forms of sheer fabric have been used in upper class homes for centuries. There was no need for privacy in country houses, but as people began to move to cities and with the introduction of Georgian architecture, with its large sash windows, terraced streets began to be seen where people looked directly to other people’s houses.
“The ideas of privacy, respectability and moral propriety were really intertwined in the Victorian period,” Patten says. “It would have been considered very rude to look directly into someone’s house.” The networks only became contaminated by association after World War II. “There was a snobbery in the suburbs. Suddenly, networks came to be seen as really old-fashioned and associated with nosy neighbors. The stereotypes of those who move the curtain began to appear.”
But, as Jensen notes, there is often a double standard at play. “When you’re inside looking out, they’re nosy neighbors; but when you are on the outside looking in, you feel curious and interested.” Let the spasms begin.