Olga’s Favorite Drapery Styles
After thirteen years of specifying drapery for Los Angeles homes, certain headings have proven themselves correct again and again — by architectural context. This is the studio’s short list, with notes on the projects behind each recommendation.
Ripple Fold Drapery
Ripple fold on a recessed ceiling track is the only heading that lets the architecture be the architecture and the drapery be the cloth. In a serious contemporary residence, no other specification is honest.
French Pleat Drapery
Three-finger French pleat, hand-tacked, on exposed bronze or wrought iron. It is the heading the architecture is asking for, and the heading that carries through generations of ownership.
Wave Fold Drapery
Wave fold in Belgian linen, layered with a performance sheer for daytime view and a fire-retardant blackout for sleep. The wave reads as softer than ripple fold and matches the relaxed register of a coastal interior.
French Pleat Drapery
Estate-scale traditional rooms reward the discipline of French pleat over almost any alternative. Goblet pleat is reserved for the formal dining and library rooms where the architecture genuinely asks for decorative heading.
Ripple Fold Drapery
Above ten feet the heading must be ceiling-mounted, interlined, and engineered to motorize. Ripple fold is the only heading that satisfies all three without compromise — though French pleat remains correct for traditional high-ceiling rooms.
Ripple Fold Drapery
On a wall of glass or a sliding-door opening, stack matters more than any other variable. Ripple fold stacks tightest, traverses cleanest, and motorizes most quietly. It is the studio's default and very rarely the wrong answer.