Embrace your Inner Traverse Rod — pinch pleat draperies are #1 for mid century homes
Mid Mod Pam on Nov 06 2007 at 1:17 pm | Filed under: attic & basement, bedroom, dining room, kitchen, living room, window treatments
I know that Pottery Barn and the like want you to buy those tabbed draperies, or the ones that simply slide onto decorative polls. But this is definitely not the right answer if you are in a mid century home! You need pinch pleat draperies, and that is that! In addition to looking so much better — in fact, I would go so far as to say that they are essential to a mid century interior — pinch pleats are insulating against both cold and heat…and, you can actually open and close them every day, with ease. My husband is a real stickler about the open-and-close part, and he is right! Nothing beats traverse rods for functionality. 
It took me a long time to conquer my fear of traverse rods, but I endured - and triumphed! Now I have beautiful vintage draperies lining my living room walls and get this, they were only $20 Canadian (and when the CDN dollar wasn’t worth anything!) If you must make up your draperies new, you will have to work hard to find someone at a reasonable cost, the labor charge can be brutal. In terms of fabric, see my post on barkcloth from melinamade. There are definitely many other sources out there, I’ll look into it…
And, if you are really ambitious, consider pinch pleated sheers underneath heavier cloth pinch pleated draperies. I am going to do this someday, it is such a heavenly look - to have the sun filtering through sheers!
Some other tips:
- Draperies that go all the way to the floor create a more formal look, a bigger statement. In the 50s you certainly saw drapes that only went to the sill or just below it. That’s fine, especially in bedrooms, but in living rooms and dining rooms, I think that to-the-floor…just brushing the floor, not puddling, is better.
- As in the second photo - considering putting draperies along an entire wall. This creates a sense of greater space. You can also see how the softness of the light pink drapes creates a great counterpoint to the outrageousness of the wallpaper.
- In addition to layering cloth with sheers, you can put horizontal Venetians underneath — see my post on 2″ aluminum blinds — as in the first photo. Layer!
- When you’re planning, you need to plan for the ’stackback’ — look this up online.
- Regarding how high to install draperies, this is an aesthetic decision. You want to balance the height of the perceived window (and the drapery becomes part of the window) with the rest of the room. In general, people make the mistake of installing the draperies too low, rather than too high.
- Finally - I actually spray painted my Kirsch traverse rod to blend in with my grasscloth wallpaper. It turned out Great!
6 Responses to “Embrace your Inner Traverse Rod — pinch pleat draperies are #1 for mid century homes”
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Judi's Lexington ranch
Amy's San Diego bungalow
[...] tend to favor a neutral colored roller shade, ala a creamy linen. Then, you can easily change the pinch pleat draperies. I have two sets of drapes for our master bedroom, for example, and it’s nice to switch them [...]
When I was growing Up we had the rods with the pull strings and the metal hooks is that Traverse?
I got vintage curtains in the living room, I just undid the pleats and sewed a hem and put them on a normal rod just straight across, they look fine and they go all the way down tot eh floor even though you don’t see it, its behind furniture
My grandmother has two walls with curtains, it was there until the day she has to move to the retirement home
[...] Pinch pleat, traverse rod draperies with upholstered valance in a large floral barkcloth tone down the formality of the room. So does the lamp - both are tailored, like the rest of the room, but with some whimsy [...]
[...] the Austins” recently linked to my site saying they liked one of my living room post illustrations. So, I dug up these two 1957 kitchens for them, too. What do you think, [...]
YES! Thank you for stating this for all to read. I’m all about the details and pinch pleat really brings mid century decor together. And there is nothing like pulling them open. Always makes me feel like a million bucks!
Hi!
I’m an American designer and I live in Bali where I make 50’s vintage dress styles and wedding dresses. (www.Whirlingturban.com) I can print my own fabrics here (HOORAY!) and share the desire the common at this site to use wonderful vintage fabric. I’m really a stickler for the small details that gave vintage fabrics and garments their unique charm and magic.
I’ve finally made good a threat to print a suitable fabric and make some mid-century style draperies. (I brought my red -and turquoise and black and chartreuse- Chinese vintage curtains all the way from the U.S. here to keep me company! But I only have the one set!) Like the author of this thread, for me it was pinch pleats or nothing at all.
I found an authentic upholstery fabric design by Eames that is a one color design made from simple repeating shapes. One color designs are the type I can do here using the batik process. (Batik was used in the 50’s and, with care, one can get an authentic look with that process.) So I did my own version of this organic geometric motif and had it made into a copper stamp to use to print my curtains.
(Batik printing is done by dipping the copper stamp, which is about 8″ x 10″, into hot wax and evenly stamping the entire fabric with this repeating allover motif. You then dunk the fabric into a huge vat of dye and the parts of the fabric where the wax was do not absorb the dye. You then wash the wax out of the fabric by boiling in hot water and you have your two color or positive-and-negative motif.)
I have long been eying a handwoven fabric that is made here in Indonesia. It is a natural thick white cotton that I felt had a feeling similar to barkcloth. It’s also somewhat similar to silk dupioni, except that it is made from cotton and is much, much, much thicker. It also has a look somewhat like a woven grass wall paper. However, I had never seen this fabric batiked so I held my breath and crossed my fingers.
The result was absolutely wonderful!!!!! The feeling I am getting from this printed fabric has the subtle whimsy of some of the boomerang type reproductions without the overwhelming multicolor motifs, which I LOVE but they are so statement-making that they can dominate the room. (While ya gotta love it, you don’t always want that effect.) The ones I’ve done have cream white motifs that look somewhat like (hugely oversized) abstract jacks -as used in the children’s game- and the background is a gray that verges on the beige. You can see the motifs without them knocking you over.
I’ve made a lot of curtains for myself over the years but had never done a “real” pinch pleat. I once bought the pleater hook contraptions and used those, but the result just wasn’t as tailored as the real thing.
I considered not lining the curtains to save time; I figured they were already thick. But I didn’t want to risk my printed fabric fading out from the sun, so I decided to just “embrace the labor”. Besides, I do have help here
After reading carefully from some drapery-making books I brought here to Bali with me, I could see that there was no avoiding 1) needing a table big enough to place the entire curtain on at one time to work with it or 2) the hand stitching that was going to be required to get the perfect right angles and the mitered corners that give this genre of draperies their richness and tailored look. I read and was convinced about the need for weights in the hems at the corners and seams (where the fabric panels are joined so that the panels are wide enough). If there had been a shortcut, believe me- I would have taken it!
I do love to sew, so once I just accepted that I wasn’t going to be able to race through this project or outsmart the drapery experts at their construction methods, I got myself some big-and I do mean big- wooden panels to extend the size of my fabric cutting tables and began the zen of handstitching the curtains, linings and pinch pleats together.
It was so worth it! These are just beautiful and so authentic! I LOVE them!
-Katherine