Wide refers to drapery product woven wide width or ‘double width’. Regular interior furnishing fabrics are woven approximately 150cm wide, wide fabrics are double this, with a width of approximately 300cm. The advantage of wide fabrics is that when used ‘continuously’, curtains can be manufactured without joins or visible vertical seams – this also reduces manufacturing costs.
To facilitate storage and shipping, wide width fabrics are usually folded and rolled onto regular length tubes suitable for 150cm wide fabrics. On receipt of the roll, the fold line can be easily ironed out. For fabrics that cannot be folded, such as coated blackouts, wide width fabrics must be rolled onto full width tubes with a length of 300cm+.
Continuous
Wide width fabrics are most often woven railroaded for ‘continuous’ or ‘room high’ use. This means that unlike regular 150cm wide fabrics that are made into curtains joined vertically at the selvedge in drops, a wide fabric is turned using the selvedges as the top and bottom of the curtain. This provides the advantage that the curtains do not show joins or seams. Many wide width fabrics can be turned and used in 300cm drops to facilitate tall ceiling heights.