The Source for Custom Linen Drapery in LA and Orange County

Light filtering ripple fold linen drapery in this mid-century condo in Palm Springs. This mid-weight linen in a warm white perfectly compliments the calm, warm desert aesthetic of this living room.

Field Work Design Craft is Los Angeles and Orange County’s premier provider of custom linen drapery and curtains.

Linen is perhaps one of the most elegant yet versatile options for drapery fabric, but calling linen draperies a “design trend” is not accurate.  Linen is a luxury material that has been used for thousands of years, favored for it’s durability back when things needed to be made to last. The same qualities that made it ideal for durable clothing and home furnishings hundreds of years ago are still what make linen an ideal choice for drapery fabric today – it holds up incredibly well, is timeless, versatile, and looks good in so many design applications, especially our Southern California design aesthetic.

Why we like linen Drapery in Los Angeles and Orange County

 There are many different weights and styles of linen, from heavy and dense linens that can be used for robust, rich, luxurious draperies, to airy and light linens that look relaxed and casual, especially when unlined, all the way down to sheer linen drapery fabrics.  A rich, dense, luxurious linen drapery will feel right at home against a more formal, design-forward space filled with exquisite stone and hardwoods, while a lighter weight, airy and casual linen curtain perfectly compliments a beachy, understated scene with light woods, warm plasters, and contemporary furniture.  Simply put, a real linen drapery elevates any space.  We use linen for draperies and curtains in home styles that span from contemporary, true midcentury modern, to coastal farmhouse and everything in between.

A detail of the same linen fabric above and all the texture it provides used in an unlined roman shade on a French door opening to a courtyard in this Spanish Revival home in Long Beach

What we like about linen as a drapery fabric: A more sustainable option

In today’s world of design and build, we should all be aware of the impacts our building and decorating material choices have on the environment.  While most fabrics used in window treatments, particularly draperies and roman shades, are synthetic and are often made from plastic and petroleum based materials (see: polyester), linen is a window treatment fabric that can be used in it’s 100% natural state without compromising on product integrity or aesthetic.

Compared to cotton, an extremely water intensive crop, linen is very low impact, soil regenerative, and typically requires little to no use of pesticides to grow, and often no human-supplied irrigation.  It’s not just the time and resources required to grow the flax to produce it that make linen’s use in draperies attractive, it’s the post-consumer impact of the material as well.  While plastic-based fabrics like polyester (PET plastic, which is petroleum based) shed microplastics and take a very long time to breakdown, natural linen has a very short post-consumer lifecycle and biodegrades in a matter of months, staying out of landfills, and more importantly, out of places like our oceans and water supply (and your body…).

A detail of this off-white, blackout lined linen drapery in a custom home in Hermosa Beach. The natural texture of the linen works perfectly with the woven wood waterfall style roman shade, the classic black French return rod, and the wooden bed frame.

 What Linen does Field Work use for Drapery and why is it more Affordable? We cut out a few Middlemen.

 We talk about this with our clients quite often, but as a window treatment store and licensed contractor, our business benefits from the fact that we are based in Long Beach, right at the intersection of Los Angeles and Orange County, and only a short 30 minute drive from the fashion district in downtown Los Angeles.  This is always our fist stop and where we prefer to source most of our basics, including the linen that ends up in our custom draperies and roman shades.  That being said, we always source the right materials for the job, and if a project calls for working with a big name fabric house, we have that option as well. But why pay more for a very similar, if not identical product? Needless to say, most of our clients see the benefit to them.

A natural colored beige linen drapery with a crown pleat (tailored pleat), hung on a 1” custom iron French return drapery rod with center support bracket.

 Our linens come from Belgium, long considered the gold standard for linen drapery fabric, but also Ireland, a country with a long history of linen milling and weaving, as well as other parts of northern and eastern Europe.  These are some of the highest quality, most versatile linen fabrics you can source, with colors ranging the entire spectrum, from earthy and neutral to bold and statement-making.  Maybe somewhat surprisingly, there is not a single mill left in the US that processes linen for commercial use.  We’d love to see that change, too.

 Alternatives to Pure Linen Drapery

I am a bit of a purist, and prefer natural materials and things that I know have a lower impact on the environment, but I am also a realist and know that one size does not fit all. We do offer linen blends, which in certain applications can be a bit more user-friendly, cost-saving, and look just as elegant.  Although linen fibers do not “stretch” the same way a cotton shirt stretches, it does “relax” and things like temperature and humidity will cause a linen drapery to lengthen and shorten. A linen blend fabric typically is less affected by ambient conditions, which in many of the coastal and / or waterfront houses we work in, can matter.

We also source and offer other natural materials that are very good alternatives to linen, too, including ramie, a plant very similar to linen that developed in Asia for thousands of years while flax-based linen was being cultivated in Europe.  And we’ve recently been working with 100% hemp based fabrics for draperies, curtains, and other window coverings and have been very, very pleased with the results.

A detail of a 100% natural hemp canvas blackout lined drapery with a French return drapery rod.

Hemp has many of the same qualities as linen, and in certain areas, including sustainability and durability, one could argue is even superior.  The resulting draperies we’ve made with hemp have been no less elegant or sophisticated than any linen we’ve used, too.  More on this later…