Top 10 Trends in Home Décor

Personality Plus

Key behind all the new looks is that they are individualized and mirror the inhabitants of the house. People no longer blindly follow a designer's dictates or want their homes to look like someone else's. They have strong opinions about every detail, and when most homes built today average 18 windows, this definitely includes window coverings.

Sheers

As skin is a big factor in today's hottest fashions, so are sheers for today's home. Heavy drapes are being eclipsed by shimmering sheers. Translucent, transparent, iridescent, cut-out, ultra-light and see-through—the variety is limitless. Gossamer solids and diffused prints, laces, cottons, chiffons, silks and burn-outs all look new and are being seen in a number of ways: under and over treatments, layered one on top of another, or over heavier fabrics and as accents.

Seductively Soft

Like today's fashions, window treatments are soft, unstructured, gently layered, begging to be touched. Gone are the days when I had draperies with pleats as stiff as soldiers on parade. Swags are so popular now—they swoop generously and are very romantic in feeling. Accompanying jabots are full, falling in lush waves, whether a relatively short 12 inches or all the way down to puddle on the floor. Fabrics—even the sheers—have been quilted and softened up with matelassé treatments. Luxury is the leitmotif, even for the most modern dwellings.

Exotic Treasures

A modern melting pot of styles, home design is as diverse as our population. Island florals, the soft shades and primitive shapes of the Sahara, the rich fabrics of Asia, the hot brights and pulsating rhythms of Latino culture. The world market is ripe with treasures to use in the home.

Hardware

Today's homes are bigger than ever. The windows are proportionately large, with what looks like acres of glass either framed architecturally or stripped clean. Because of this, hardware has taken on new importance. No longer merely functional, hardware is now part of the big picture, to be looked at and admired.

Newly Retro

Just as this season's best-looking clothes are replete with details from the '40s, '50s and '60s—swirling skirts, shirtwaist dresses, Pucci prints—so are the newest window coverings. Toile prints and kitschy figuratives, contrasting bolts of color, streamlined Art Deco motifs, two-inch aluminum blinds (Hunter Douglas invented them) with bright cloth tapes: shutters come in a wide range of retro styles that are popular at the window today. Window treatments look custom, even when readymade, and are often the focal point of a room.

Trims are Tops

Buttons, beads, lace, fringe, strips, pleats and tabs. Not only fun, trims are one of the easiest ways to customize one's home decor. Depending upon size, color and material—the array stretches from chiffon and chenille to leather and jute—these extra flourishes add the personal touch people want. Even the simplest windows take on the European kind of insouciance Americans have long admired and can now have when such details are employed.

Special FX

Glamour is everywhere. In the home, it's especially visible in fabrics enhanced with sheen or flecked with metallic threads. Iridescents, gold, silver, copper and platinum-toned fabrics create highlights and shadows and are an effective look for nearly every room in the house. They cover headrails and are made into draperies and curtains. Paired with Duette honeycomb shades or pleated shades—now available for the popular arched Palladian and other architecturally enriched windows—it's easy for everyone to feel like a star.