Fabric Blinds
Nobody actually makes a product called a fabric blind. Six real products answer to the name, and they do very different jobs. Here is which one you are looking for.
Why This Page Is Not a Product Page
Plenty of window covering companies will happily sell you something called Fabric Blinds. We would rather tell you the truth: it is not a product name. Hunter Douglas does not make one, and neither does anyone else in the industry.
It is a phrase people reach for when they know what they want but not what it is called. Usually it means one of two things. Either soft material instead of hard wood or aluminum slats, or specifically fabric with visible folds or vanes.
That is a completely reasonable way to start. It just means the next step is picking which of six real products you actually meant, and they behave very differently. One insulates. One blacks out a room. One is the only sensible answer for a patio door. Choosing on looks alone is how people end up disappointed.
The Six Things People Mean
Every one of these is real fabric, or in the last case a real natural material. They are ordered roughly from the most literal reading of the phrase to the least.
Roller Shades
The most literal answer. One flat panel of fabric on a roller, from sheer right through to blackout, in the widest color range we carry.
Roman Shades
If you pictured fabric with visible folds, this is what you meant. Real fabric that gathers into soft folds as it rises.
Cellular Shades
Fabric formed into honeycomb cells that trap air at the glass. The only fabric option here that genuinely insulates.
Sheer Shades
Fabric vanes suspended inside sheer fabric. Tilt them for light and privacy without giving up the view.
Vertical Blinds
Fabric vanes hanging from a track, and the right answer for a patio door. The Somner range alone has 81 fabrics.
Woven Wood Shades
Not fabric, but usually what people mean by texture. Bamboo, reeds and grasses, handwoven.
Narrow It Down by What the Room Needs
You want the room genuinely dark. Roller shades in a room-darkening or blackout fabric, or cellular shades with a blackout liner. Nothing else on this page truly blacks out, whatever it looks like in a photograph.
The room is cold, or the heating bill is annoying you. Cellular shades. The honeycomb structure is the only one here actually engineered to insulate.
You want to keep the view and lose the glare. Sheer shades. Fabric vanes inside sheer, so you tilt for light without covering the window.
It is a sliding door or a very wide opening. Vertical blinds in a fabric vane. They stack back into a narrow bundle and clear the doorway, which nothing else manages as neatly.
You mostly want it to look beautiful. Roman shades for soft fabric folds, or woven wood shades for natural texture. Both get chosen for how they look, and that is a perfectly good reason.
The room is a bathroom or a laundry. Then fabric is the wrong family. Sustained humidity is hard on textiles, and aluminum blinds or a vinyl vertical will give you a similar effect and outlast it.
What Fabric Gives You That Wood and Metal Cannot
Softness is the obvious one. A fabric covering diffuses light instead of cutting it into hard stripes, so a room with strong afternoon sun feels calmer rather than banded.
Color and texture is the second. Wood gives you grain and aluminum gives you finish, but neither offers the range of weaves, tones and opacities that fabric does. On a Boise window facing hard west light, the weave is what decides whether the room glows or glares.
And motorization works better. Roller, Roman, cellular and sheer shades all take Hunter Douglas PowerView, which moves the entire shade from a remote, the app or a schedule. On a wood blind, PowerView only tilts the slats and you still raise it by hand.
Questions People Ask About Fabric Blinds
Is There Such a Thing as a Fabric Blind?
Not as a product name. Hunter Douglas does not make anything called a fabric blind, and neither does anyone else in the industry. It is a phrase people use to describe any soft window covering, as opposed to hard wood or aluminum slats. What you are actually choosing between is a roller shade, a Roman shade, a cellular shade, a sheer shade or a fabric vertical.
Which Fabric Option Is Best for a Bedroom?
A roller shade in a room-darkening or blackout fabric, or a cellular shade with a blackout liner. Those are the only two on this page that will genuinely darken a room. Roman shades, sheer shades and fabric verticals all let some light through by design, and adding a liner improves them without making them blackout.
Which One Actually Keeps a Room Warmer?
Cellular shades, and it is not close. The honeycomb cells trap a layer of air against the glass, which is the only structure here engineered to slow heat moving through a window. Every other fabric option is a single layer of material.
Are Fabric Window Coverings Harder to Keep Clean?
Less than people expect. Most are dusted with a feather duster or vacuumed on low suction, and many can be spot cleaned. Where fabric genuinely struggles is sustained humidity, so for a bathroom or a laundry we would point you at aluminum blinds or a vinyl vertical instead.
Can Fabric Window Coverings Be Motorized?
Yes, and this is where fabric has the advantage over a wood blind. Roller, Roman, cellular and sheer shades all take Hunter Douglas PowerView, which moves the whole shade from a remote, an app or a schedule. On a wood blind, PowerView only tilts the slats.
We Bring Fabric Samples to Your Home
You do not have to arrive knowing which of these you want. Tell Justin what the room is doing wrong, too bright, too cold, no privacy at night, a door you keep walking through, and he will bring the samples that answer it and hold them against your own window. Our showroom at 2615 W Main St in Boise is open too if you would rather come to us. Call ahead so we can be sure to be there.
Or call (208) 808-8676
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