Are Voile Curtains Old Fashioned?

It depends what you mean by voile. The heavy patterned net curtains that filled UK windows in the 80s and 90s are old fashioned, yes. They are not what is sold as voiles today. Modern voile curtains are a different product, designed for a different look, and they are very much in fashion.

What people are actually thinking of

When someone Googles whether voile curtains are old fashioned, the picture in their head is usually one of two things. Either the heavy net curtain. Thick, slightly yellow, often with a swag at the bottom and a small repeating pattern. Or the elaborate sheer with a fancy embroidered border, popular in pebble-dashed semis around the turn of the millennium.

Both of those are dated. Both are also not really what the term ‘voile’ describes today. They are nets, or heavy embellished sheers, and they belong to a specific era.

What voile curtains look like now

The current voile is a clean, lightweight sheer panel in a plain or simply-textured weave. White, ivory, silver and natural shades dominate. There are no swags, no pelmets, no patterned borders. The fabric does the work; the styling is intentionally restrained.

The way they hang has also changed. Modern voiles use slot-top or eyelet headings rather than the gathered tape-top style of older nets. They sit on a curtain pole rather than a metal wire, which gives a cleaner, more deliberate look.

Why they are popular again

Three things make voiles relevant to current interior design:

The trend across both residential and hospitality interiors is toward layered, considered window dressings. A clean voile behind a plain main curtain looks intentional in a way that a bare window or a single curtain does not. Hotels, boutique B&Bs and holiday lets use the layered look almost as standard.

Open-plan living puts more glass into modern homes, and bigger windows need privacy management that does not also kill the daylight. Voiles are the only product that offers full daytime privacy without darkening the room.

Net curtains went out of fashion, but the underlying need they served (daytime privacy with light) did not go away. The voile is the modern, restyled solution to the same problem.

When they look dated

A voile can still look dated if it is the wrong style or hung the wrong way. Heavy patterned voiles, ones with elaborate embroidered borders, or anything pulled tight across a window on a wire all read as old fashioned regardless of how new the fabric is.

The way to keep voiles looking current is to choose plain or subtle textures, hang them on a pole rather than a wire, and pair them with a clean main curtain rather than letting them work alone.

The Homefords range

The voile range at Homefords covers four collections: Sheer, Crushed, Feather and Fractal. All use modern slot-top or eyelet headings designed for poles. The Sheer collection is the newest and the most contemporary; the Crushed and Feather collections offer subtle texture without going into pattern territory.

Browse the full range of wholesale voile curtains at Homefords. Four collections, in stock with no minimum order.