Silk Taffeta

 

I love silk taffeta. Its rustle and gleam. The way it folds and drapes languorously, while still retaining its shape. I love the fact that you can, with your hands, mold silk taffeta curtains into almost any shape you want, from a rippling waterfall to a long, lazy balloon.

Silk taffeta dresses up every room you put it in. Even if your furniture is simple and inexpensive, put up some silk taffeta curtains, and you’re suddenly in a ballroom.

They’re pretty in pink, as in this Suzanne Kasler-designed dining room.

They’re gorgeous in blue, as a complement to Chinoiserie.

Burlap sacks on the chairs, weathered wood furniture, and silk taffeta at the windows  -- stunning!

What should we do with this window? Here’s your answer (from Eleanor Cummings).

I think I’ll just sit here for a while…like a few years…
let the curtains fray around me.

This has to be the most beautiful bathroom of all time. 
Who would think to put a chocolate silk taffeta balloon shade in a bathroom? 
Someone who understands the magic of silk. 

It’s true, silk taffeta doesn’t like the sun. Without protection, these curtains will,

in a few years, turn your abode into a version of Miss Havisham’s crumbling manor. No matter, you can just live with the fraying fabric and add a mouse-eaten wedding cake for effect (just kidding).

Actually, I’ve solved my fraying-at-the-edges problem in my own living room by just switching all the panels so the fresh side faces in. I figure I’ll get another 10 years or so this way, then I’ll take them down and edge them with linen or velvet. Problem solved for yet another decade. 

Expensive and impractical – just like Louboutins, right? But once you have them, you’ll never let them go.