Interior Design — Where the Work Is Moving
Observations from a year of specifying drapery alongside the designers and architects shaping Los Angeles residential interiors.
The most interesting work in Los Angeles right now is quieter than it was three years ago. The designers I am specifying alongside are pulling back from saturated palettes, hard-edged contemporary, and the high-gloss finishes of the 2022–2024 cycle.
What is replacing it is a softer, warmer, more material-forward sensibility — limewashed plaster, unfilled travertine, hand-loomed wool, oak with visible grain, and drapery that reads as part of the wall rather than as decoration applied to it.
The shift is most visible in primary suites. Three years ago, the brief was almost always 'contemporary, dramatic, hotel-like.' This year, the brief is 'considered, soft, slept-in.' The drapery specification has followed: more linen, less performance velvet, more interlining, fewer pleats per inch, and a much heavier emphasis on the fall of the panel rather than the heading.
It is a healthier moment in residential design than the city has had in a decade. The architecture is being respected; the rooms are being lived in; the drapery is being asked to participate rather than to perform.
Olga Rechdouni is the principal designer of House of Drapery and a consulting specialist on custom drapery for the residential interiors of Los Angeles. She is a member of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and works privately with homeowners, interior designers, and architects.