Why we love double sided curtains

There's a quiet shift happening in the way we're thinking about curtains. Not a dramatic overhaul - more of a considered evolution. And it comes down to one beautifully simple idea: what if the fabric you chose worked just as hard from the outside as it does from within?

Double-sided curtains - curtains where the lining is chosen with as much intention as the face fabric - are having a proper moment. And honestly, it's one we've been waiting for.

Why Now?

For years, lining was an afterthought. A practical necessity. Something white or ivory, chosen for its thermal properties and nothing else. But as interiors have become more considered, and as we've all spent more time looking at our homes from every angle - the view from the street, the garden, the driveway has started to matter just as much as what you see from the sofa.

Add to that a growing appetite for layered, story-led interiors, and the double-sided curtain makes complete sense. It's not just a curtain. It's two design decisions in one.

Take Notes from Hotels

If you want to know where interiors are heading, spend five minutes in a well-designed hotel room. The people specifying those spaces - the interior designers working at the higher end of hospitality - are often a step ahead of the domestic market. They have budgets that allow for considered decisions, and they have to make rooms work from every angle, including the exterior and they are always focused on making rooms dark!

It's in hotel rooms that we consistently spot the double-sided curtain done properly. A traditional floral cotton linen face, backed with a beautiful warm brown linen blackout. A botanical print paired with a deep sage reverse. The kind of combination that makes you stop and actually look at the curtain - which, when you think about it, is exactly the point.

The Room Divider

The most considered use of a double-sided curtain is as a room divider or internal draught excluder for older properties - separating a living from a dining space, a sleeping area from a dressing room, or simply creating a sense of enclosure in a larger open-plan room and even internal doors to prevent echo. Here, both faces of the curtain are on permanent display, and both need to earn their place.

This is where the fabric combination becomes a genuine design decision rather than a finishing detail. The two sides don't need to match — but they do need to relate. A floral face with a plain reverse in a pulled tone from the print. A textured linen on one side, a contrast colour on the other. The curtain becomes a piece of the room from whichever direction you're looking at it.

How It Works in Practice

The principle is simple: instead of a standard white or cream blackout lining, you select a lining fabric - a plain, a texture, or a contrast colour - that works visually in its own right.

• It grounds the print. A busy pattern can feel unanchored without something solid to sit against. Choosing a colour to complement the room.
• It controls the light beautifully. A blackout lining in a richer tone prevents that washed-out, slightly grey look you can get when light pushes through a patterned face. The warmth comes through instead.
• It reads well from the reverse. Uniform, composed, intentional.

Choosing Your Combination

The pairing is everything. Here's how we approach it:

Floral or pattern face + plain lining in a pulled tone
Take a dominant colour from the pattern - not the most obvious one, but the one that gives it its character - and find a linen or cotton in that shade. It ties the curtain together as a single piece rather than two separate fabrics sitting on top of each other.

Neutral face + contrast lining
A plain or textured face with a contrasting lining works particularly well with holdbacks — the contrast lining becomes a deliberate reveal when the curtain is dressed back. A barely-there oatmeal linen on one side; a deep inky navy on the other. You'd never know until the curtain moved.

Floral or pattern face + plain lining carried to the face
If you love the lining as much as the face fabric, consider bringing the lining to the front to create a narrow border - this works really well when carried across the heading as well as the leading edges.

The Heading Question

When a curtain is used as a room divider, the position of the pole or track needs thinking about before anything else. If the track sits closer to one room, that side becomes the primary face - and the heading should be chosen to suit that space first. A more formal room might call for a pinch pleat or goblet; a relaxed living space might suit something altogether softer.

Where the track sits centrally and both sides carry equal weight, you have more freedom. A wave heading works well - the continuous fold sits neatly from both sides with nothing to hide. A deep, proper pencil pleat is another strong option, full and generous when drawn back. Or, depending on the style of your home, something softer and more relaxed - a cottage pleat has an unfussy, floppy quality that suits informal spaces beautifully.

What the heading shouldn't do is fight the fabric. The combination of face and lining is already doing a lot of work. The heading is there to carry it.

A Note on Blackout

Blackout lining doesn't have to mean clinical. The assumption that blackout equals a stiff, plasticky, white-backed fabric is long out of date. There are now blackout linings woven in linen-look textures and warm, considered tones that drape well, press well, and look as good as any decorative fabric when the curtain is stacked back.

The brown linen blackout is a case in point. It isn't compromising anything. It's contributing.

The Eyes of the House

An American colleague once asked us, while standing in Notting Hill: what is the accent colour of London houses? His answer was white. Window frames, sills, fanlights - the eyes of the home, as he put it, all picked out in white. And he was right. For generations, white frames have set the tone for what sits behind them. Pale linings, ivory interlinings, cream sheers - everything deferred to that bright white surround.

But window frames are changing. Black frames, anthracite, bronze, forest green - coloured frames are now as common in new builds and renovations as white ever was. And that changes everything about how a lining reads from outside. A crisp white lining behind a black frame looks stark, even unfinished. A warm stone, a soft sage, a dusty blush - suddenly the whole window becomes a considered thing, inside and out.

If your frames are anything other than white, your lining colour deserves the same thought as your face fabric. It's one of the simplest ways to make a house look intentional from the street - and one of the most overlooked.

Is It Right for Your Room?

The double-sided curtain works hardest where both sides of the fabric are in view — as a room divider, across a doorway, or in any space where the curtain is a feature rather than just a window covering.

It's also worth considering for any window visible from outside. A terrace, a garden, a street frontage. The exterior view is part of your home's design whether you've thought about it or not. You might as well make it deliberate.

If you'd like to explore fabric combinations book a free in-home consultation and we'll bring the options to you.