The big comeback of the curtain has been whispered about for some time now. In a wide-ranging report, the trend forecasters at WGSN picked them as one of their top 13 trends of 2024: “Once considered old-fashioned, curtains will be the newest must-have for homes to refresh rental spaces and those in need of a budget-friendly makeover,” the WGSN trend team wrote. Using curtains outside of their typical window covering context is no new discovery, but we have been noticing them more and more in recent years—whether it’s shrouding a bookcase in a home designed by Prospect Refuge, dividing a room in a unit overseen by Matt McKay, or surrounding a Billy Cotton–designed bedroom.
But lately, one particular use has been making a splash: bathroom drapes. Distinct from a regular shower curtain, the curtains we’ve been peeping in bathrooms lately are custom-made to add a degree of drama and sophistication that an off-the-rack shower curtain just can’t.
One fitting example of the curtain’s transformative power can be found in the bathroom of fashion designer Harris Reed. Designer Georgina Wood of Studio Clementine explains that the brief was to create a “Wes Anderson–style bathroom” in the small space. With its sense of whimsical cohesion, it’s safe to say she pulled it off: The bathroom is a symphony of pink, red, and green hues, including a delicate white-and-green striped wallpaper by Nina Campbell, green marble accents, and the red fluted tub.
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“A standard [glass] shower screen seemed to me boring and also divided the room, but a curtain could be pulled back,” Wood says. “It just adds glamor and softness to all the hard finishes in the bathroom.” The final product is a pink velvet (specifically Manuel Canovas’s Rivoli in Dragee) with trim and tiebacks both by Samuel & Sons. Though Wood used a velvet lined with a polyurethane laminate fabric for this particular space, in general she’d recommend an outdoor fabric like the “stunning range” from Pierre Frey for a bathtub shower curtain. Besides her own home, the Reed project was Wood’s first time designing a bathroom with a proper curtain around the tub.
Designer Courtney Hanig of Massachusetts-based Courtney Hanig Interiors has been making curtains for tubs and showers for years. Working in new builds with high ceilings, custom drapes made of voluminous fabrics offer a way to accentuate this asset. Plus, for clients with young children, grandkids, or even dogs to bathe, the curtain wins out on the practicality front, too, since it’s easier to lean over into the bath than navigate around a sliding glass door, she notes. Typically, Hanig mounts the curtains on a track system and adds a waterproof liner behind her fabric of choice. Her preference is to cover the track with trim that matches the rest of the millwork in the room, but for clients with more modern tastes, she’ll leave the track exposed. “The track system allows you to use decorator fabric, it drapes nicely, it’s performance, and then it always looks neat and fresh. I feel like it makes the bathroom count as a room,” Hanig explains. “When you’re spending the kind of money you are on renovating a bathroom, I do think that the tub curtain sets it off so that they’re equal elevation.”
Interior designer Haley Weidenbaum, the founder of custom curtain company Everhem, has been noticing more and more requests for atypical curtain placements from the company’s customers. For bathroom drapes, she’s partial to curtains around a freestanding tub and would recommend the use of outdoor fabrics. “Adding custom, beautiful curtains brings a special touch, making the space even more inviting and luxurious,” Weidenbaum states.
