Over the last few decades, the common style in interior design has become streamlined, tailored, and sleek. While this can be perfectly lovely, many feel that attention to detail has become a lost art, and there are very few designers today who know how to implement them well. Why? Designer Linda Kerekes summed it up best during my “anti-trend” series last January…
“During Mario Buatta’s heyday in the eighties, we designers had the privilege of having clients who would put money and thought into the purchase of the best fabrics and beautiful silk trims. We would use custom workrooms to create wonderfully crafted draperies and upholstery. This was because the classic design favored by the upper class society figures of the day were meant to be permanent, timeless, and forever. They were the models that others wanted to exemplify. Designers were creating permanent backgrounds for the clients’s collections of art, things from travels and family photos, their history. Interiors were not changed like couture gowns. They were curated and replaced only as they were lovingly worn out. Clients were willing to invest in the best quality because these things were made to last forever. It would be lovely if we could get back to quality over change,” she said.
Mario Buatta’s 1984 Kips Bay Decorator Show House bedroom “that shook the world,” according to Architectural Digest.
Close up of the curtains, via Little Augury
Case in point: modern curtains. Open up any design magazine, and you will likely see windows dressed with simply tailored fabric on either side, typically with no frills, passementerie, or detail. Of course all of these bells and whistles are expensive, and one could argue that our nation’s increasingly transient nature contributes to this lack of commitment (according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the average person in the United States moves residences more than 11 times in his or her lifetime.) But the late, great Mario Buatta had a solution to that problem. In an interview conducted by Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel in 1981, he said:
“I have had the same chintz in my sitting room (with the dogs) that I’ve had since 1962. I’ve never changed it. I have moved four times, and each time I move, I’ve just added on to the curtains either this way or that way. They have been with me. They are like old friends.” An excellent example of this reuse can be seen throughout the four homes Buatta designed for Patricia Altschul. He also states, “I think curtains are very important, they become architect to the rooms… They can help soften the space and the lines of the room. They also keep out a lot of the draft and the cold.”
Mario Buatta
Mario Buatta for Patricia Altschul
Mario Buatta for Patricia Altschul
Mario Buatta for Patricia Altschul (image via Luzanne Otte)
Mario Buatta for Patricia Altschul
Emily Evans Eerdmans, author of Mario Buatta – Fifty Years of American Interior Decoration, explains that this style of curtain is signature Buatta design. The festive pennant valances were inspired by ones made for the Prince Regent at Carlton House in the 1790s. (source)
Mario Buatta
Mario Buatta
Mario Buatta
Mario was a genius with curtains, and he learned from his mentor John Fowler.
In John Fowler: The Prince of Decorators, author Martin Wood writes (pages 112-113) Fowler “was not only interested in curtains and general upholstery fabrics, but also in historical costume. He spent hours in the Victorian and Albert Museum costume collection studying the fabrics, the pattern, and the cut of the clothes. A particular fascination with eighteenth-century dress can be seen translated into his choice and use of fabrics for decorating, such as his use of slipper satin, and into the way he constructed his trimming details. Slipper satin was obtained from theatrical costumiers, hence the strong theatrical colors such as bright yellow, pink, and mauve. The use of ‘pinked’ edges, done with a pinking machine, seems to have been an innovation of his, as was the use of ruched boarders to curtains. He learnt about curtains and curtain-making by buying antique (usually Victorian) drapery and then spending hours unpicking it to see how it had been made. He quickly grasped that, like haute couture, it was the way the fabric was cut that was crucial. In later years, it was quite common for him to have complex valances made up first in calico just to be sure the effect would work and look right.”
a sketch by John Fowler (source)
John Fowler (source)
John Fowler
John Fowler
Chintz curtains designed by John Fowler from the ante room at Hambleden Manor via Christies
John Fowler
John Fowler
Fowler lined his silk confections with small print chintz, a detail later utilized by his protégé Mario Buatta. Image via Little Augury
The result was a confectionary delight reminiscent of a couture ballgown. “It is hard to believe that he [Fowler] did not wonder what Marie Antoinette would have liked to have had,” writes John Cornforth (page 146) in The Inspiration of the Past: Country House Taste in the Twentieth Century.
Kirsten Dunst in Marie Antoinette
Mario Buatta for Patricia Altschul (image on left via Architectural Digest; image on right via Luzanne Otte)
Below are examples of exquisitely designed curtains by various illustrious designers…
Leta Austin Foster (who interned with Colefax and Fowler and the great Imogen Taylor) designs beautiful curtains. She has an entire chapter dedicated to them in her book Traditional Interiors, and on page 22 she says of the curtains above… “Tableau drawn drapes are a perfect solution for tall, narrow windows… These are complicated curtains to construct; for proper fullness and drape, five layers of fabric are used: face fabric, black chintz, white outing flannel, black chintz again, and then striped ticking on the back so that the curtains are attractive from outside as well. The top is one of the most difficult components, as all five layers of the draperies must be gathered together by hand correctly…”
Also by Leta Austin Foster, “this seemingly simple, sweet cornice with a ‘Chinese corner’ on either end is actually a tour de force of planning and design executed by a master curtain maker… The pale blue floral motif from Clarence House was edged with matching white linen to outline the graceful curves of the pelmet, with tiny blue-and-white-gingham-check welting demarcating the fabrics. The finishing touch was a pair of wooden bells on either end, hand painted…” she explains in Traditional Interiors.
Jacqueline Kennedy’s White House dressing room by Stéphane Boudin
Miles Redd
Charlotte Moss
What are your thoughts on couture curtains? Swags, bows, tails, choux, balloons, bells, lambrequins, pelmets, pinking, fans, double fans, and frills… I love it all! And I would love to see a resurgence of this classic interior design art form. For additional information on this subject, please visit The Peak of Chic (here and here) and Little Augury. I also highly recommend the gorgeous book Window Dressings: Beautiful Draperies & Curtains for the Home.
10 of Patricia Altschul’s Favorite Things
The Magic of Mario: The Life and Legend of Mario Buatta
Southern Charm with Patricia Altschul
John Fowler’s Nantclwyd Hall Revisited
Those curtains (especially the ones from Colefax & Fowler) are just so beautiful! And nothing like you see in Bed, Bath & Beyond. It would be so worth it to have curtains custom made. Gorgeous!
Excellent article!
Whilst perusing real estate listings daily, I see so many drapery “fails”. Sometimes the rooms are beautifully appointed, only to have the windows bare or carelessly dressed, destroying the whole effect. Fowler, Buatta and other designers understood that draperies were everything to a room. There seems to be a tendency these days to leave windows bare – basically the equivalent, decorating-wise to having a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There are occasions when windows should not be covered, but they are few, and certainly not in bedrooms or regular living areas. Custom draperies are costly, but should be thought of as an investment, as all decor is. Trendy is not the way to go. Classic never goes out of style.
Fabulous article. All of those curtains are swoon worthy! Many thanks for so many glorious photographs.
Beautiful post! Some of the images I had not seen before- these designer curtains are horribly expensive- I recently did some relatively simple ones for a client that were well over $22,000.00 – the ones we took down were $40,000.00 !
I love that you love the romance of fine workmanship translated into whimsical and functional curtains! The fastest way to make a house a home is to have custom window treatments installed.
Thanks for a fabulous post Andrea!
MB R.I.P.
what a feast for the eyes!! I adore curtains and drapery – my mother did not have a lot of money for decorating but she was a master seamstress so she made all of her own curtains/drapes and designed and had made her own cornices. These photos are just beautiful – thank you so much for this post!
Oh, the limitations of a photograph… Perhaps drapery loses most in the translation from reality to photograph. Not only can one not perceive the cut of the material (or its “lay”), but one cannot see the dimensionality created by its stitching and folds, one cannot see the interplay of directional light upon colour against/amongst colours, one cannot feel the all important weight of multiple layerings of fabric, or feel the texture of each fabric itself (does it slide or does it hold?). There are so many stories in a well-executed drapery composition (sorry, but “curtains” will always allude to only the simplest form to me). Thank you for these beautiful bespoke images of drapery at its best. May beauty live on.
Glorious article! What a shame that these days, only the very wealthy can afford the look. I remember when many years ago you could buy ready mades that were similar, if not as opulent. Presently buyers are only offered one style and today’s design is lacking the personality that beautiful windows add to a room. Plain windows are like eyes without makeup!! I’m hoping for new looks in the near future, where one can choose the design they like rather than having it chosen for you, as is the case today. More variety, PLEASE! We are not all alike and our homes should be able to reflect that!! Thank you for reminding us that there are so many beautiful that ways we achieve that! You are rare gem of inspiration.
Hi Dianne,
Amen to that, and thank you for the kind words! I’ll tell you a little secret… You can often find these fabulous works of art for pennies on the dollar via eBay and at auction as people buy into the latest trend. 🙂
Xx,
Andrea
The Glam Pad
I love this post SO MUCH, if you turned it into a small book, I’d buy it and keep it on my coffee table. I’d probably buy more as little “just because” gifts.
I’m wondering why the photos can’t be Pinned?
Thank you for a great Friday morning coffee read!!
Hi Kyrah,
A book I highly recommend is Window Dressings: Beautiful Draperies & Curtains for the Home https://rstyle.me/+hjkZNsQl5KYgl6mrsnwQGQ. I should have included it in my post, I will add it now. It is gorgeous, you will love it!
Regarding the Pin button, I checked with my tech support, and it should be working… They said you might need to clear browser cache and make sure your browser is up to date. Does that help?
Thank you so much for your kind words!
Xx,
Andrea
The Glam Pad
I still have such curtains in 3 rooms in my house. Alas, my gorgeous C&F “Fuchsia” DR curtains had to finally be replaced (after 31 years!) with ones with a simpler valance. There is no longer local workroom or seamstresses who can fabricate the elaborate valances. Gawd, but I loved those curtains!
Curtains make a room. They give it individuality, to say nothing of COLOR. I’ll hang onto the ones I have til they turn them into a shroud for me one day.
BTW – I much prefer the term “curtains” to “draperies”. When I hear “drapery”, I think of flat, pinch pleat ones careful hand dressed to fall straight and narrow, often made out of the ubiquitous “antique satin” favored in the 60’s & 70’s. Colefax & Fowler always used the term curtains and Rita Konig does as well. Curtains, they are!
Hi Suzanne,
Ahhh, Fuchsia is such a fabulous print! I love it so much I wrote an entire post on it. 🙂 https://www.theglampad.com/2017/10/colefax-and-fowlers-classic-fuchsia-chintz.html And yes, I agree with you about the term curtains!
Xx,
Andrea
The Glam Pad
I couldn’t agree more! I can’t stand bare windows! I know that has been and is the trend, but don’t you want some privacy? I can’t afford such beautiful curtains, but I’ll start looking on Ebay. Thanks for that wonderful tip.
Have you ever read Joni Webb’s post on window treatments from her “Top Ten Series on her “Cote de Texas” blog? It’s a real education on draperies. It’s wonderful and so lengthy. I highly recommend it.
Beautiful post !! A feast for the eyes indeed
I’ve got a curtain crush on every one of these beautiful creations. What a lovely post Andrea! It cheered me up after feeling quite heartbroken this morning. I just came home from the beach here in Oceanside, seriously depressed because another beautiful victorian home down on Pacific Street has just been smashed down by a bulldozer. They didn’t even try to save the gorgeous windows. The charming little lady who used to live there had the most beautiful curtains hanging in those windows! I’m sure the new owners threw them in the trash just like they threw away a beautiful charming house. I’ll miss it and those windows and curtains. It was one of the prettiest houses in town.