Faux silk blinds occupy a specific niche: they bring the sheen and soft reflectivity of silk-look fabric to a roman blind format, at a price and durability level that real silk couldn't sustain at the window. If you are dressing a formal sitting room, a dining room, or a bedroom where you want the blind to contribute to the room rather than disappear into it, faux silk is worth considering alongside plain polyester romans. This guide covers three made-to-measure roman picks from UK retailers, all in faux-silk fabrics, and explains the meaningful differences between them.

What faux silk actually means

Faux silk fabrics are woven polyester constructions engineered to replicate the light-catching surface quality of real silk - the slight reflectivity, the way colour shifts subtly as the angle of light changes, and the clean drape without the heaviness of a thick woven fabric. The result is a fabric that reads as more formal than a plain matte polyester, but is considerably more stable and practical at the window than real silk, which can fade and rot in direct sunlight.

The term covers a range of surface finishes. Standard faux silk has a gentle sheen - noticeable but not obviously synthetic. Faux silk lustre fabrics are brighter and more explicitly reflective, catching light more noticeably across the roman folds. The choice between them depends on how much light-play you want in the finished room: a lustre fabric in a room with strong directional light will look deliberately considered; in a dimmer room it can look slightly washed out. A standard faux silk is quieter and works across a broader range of room orientations.

Both variants are mid-weight fabrics in the context of roman blinds. They drape cleanly, fold into even horizontal pleats, and hold their shape well. Neither is designed for blackout or thermal performance - faux silk fabrics are decorative fabrics with light-reducing rather than blackout characteristics, and they work best in rooms where the primary requirement is appearance rather than darkness.

What to look for

Sheen level. The most meaningful decision in this category is standard sheen versus lustre. Standard faux silk reads as quietly elegant; lustre reads as explicitly silky and reflective. Rooms with good natural light and a more formal decorating direction suit lustre. Rooms with limited light or a lower-key scheme are usually better served by standard faux silk.

Colour palette. Faux silk fabrics are solid-colour ranges rather than printed ones, and the palette tends towards sophisticated, somewhat restrained tones - neutrals, greys, blues, and accent shades rather than bright primaries. The three picks we cover here each have a distinct palette character, and colour match to your existing room is likely the deciding factor once you have chosen between sheen levels.

Light control. All three picks are in the dimout or light-reducing range rather than blackout. The faux silk surface is not opaque enough to block light completely, and none of the ranges reviewed here describe a blackout lining as standard. For bedrooms where true darkness is the priority, a different fabric category would serve better.

Room suitability. Faux silk works well in formal living spaces, dining rooms, and bedrooms where the blind is part of a composed scheme. It is less well suited to kitchens, bathrooms, or children's rooms where durability and easy cleaning take precedence - the fabric is best maintained with careful dry dusting or light vacuuming rather than damp cleaning.

Made-to-measure fit. All three picks are made to your specified width and drop, which matters particularly for roman blinds where an imprecise fit reads as sloppy. Measure carefully and decide whether you are fitting inside the recess or face-fixing to the wall or frame - the two approaches call for different measurements and give slightly different finished looks.

The roman stack. Roman blinds fold into a concertina stack at the top when raised. For a faux silk fabric, that stack is visible and needs to look intentional - the clean folds of a well-made roman in a silk-effect fabric can themselves be part of the room's visual interest. On very short windows, the raised stack takes up a meaningful proportion of the window height, so check the minimum drop the range can be made to.

Our picks

Best overall

Kyoto Faux Silk

at 247 Blinds

A faux-silk roman from 247 Blinds with a soft sheen for formal rooms.

from £17.45 in 15 colours

Read review →
Best lustre

Akoya Faux Silk Lustre

at 247 Blinds

The Akoya faux-silk lustre roman from 247 Blinds, brighter and more reflective.

from £12.62 in 13 colours

Read review →
Best value
Opulent Faux Silk

Opulent Faux Silk

at Make My Blinds

A faux-silk roman from Make My Blinds at a gentler price.

from £12.17 in 17 colours

Read review →

Pick details

Best overall

Kyoto Faux Silk

at 247 Blinds

A faux-silk roman from 247 Blinds with a soft sheen for formal rooms.

from £17.45 in 15 colours

Read review →

The Kyoto Faux Silk roman from 247 Blinds is our best-overall pick because it balances a genuinely wide colour selection with a price point that puts faux silk within reach for most rooms. At 15 colour options, the range spans from cool neutrals - Sea Grey, Silver, Greige, Oyster - through warm earth tones - Sand, Brun, Warm Brown - to accent colours including Azure, Holly, Berry, Pink Rouge, and Gold. Anthracite and Orient extend the range towards darker, more dramatic shades.

The sheen level on the Kyoto is in the standard faux-silk register - the fabric reflects light noticeably but is not as explicitly bright as a lustre fabric. This makes it the more versatile choice across different room orientations and decorating schemes, and is the reason it sits at best overall rather than being narrowed to a specific use case.

As with all roman blinds, the Kyoto folds into horizontal pleats at rest and stacks at the top when raised. The faux silk surface means those folds have a subtle visual interest - the slight sheen shifts as you view from different angles. For a formal sitting room or dining room, this reads as intentional and polished. For a bedroom, it depends on how much you want the blind to contribute versus recede into the background.

Compared with the Akoya lustre pick below, the Kyoto is quieter - a better choice if you want the blind to complement rather than lead the room. Compared with the Opulent pick from Make My Blinds, the Kyoto's colour range is broader and the retailer (247 Blinds) tends to be slightly higher in the price range for equivalent window sizes.

Best lustre

Akoya Faux Silk Lustre

at 247 Blinds

The Akoya faux-silk lustre roman from 247 Blinds, brighter and more reflective.

from £12.62 in 13 colours

Read review →

The Akoya Faux Silk Lustre roman, also from 247 Blinds, is the brighter, more explicitly reflective pick in this guide. The "lustre" designation in the range name is accurate: this fabric catches light more noticeably than the Kyoto, with the roman's horizontal folds amplifying the effect in rooms where light hits the blind from an angle.

The 13-colour palette for the Akoya is strongly weighted towards greys and silvers - Gunmetal Grey, Steel Grey, Slate Grey, Tarnished Grey, Pure Silver, Flint, and Chalk give the range a metallic-adjacent character that is quite distinct from the Kyoto's warmer and more varied palette. Ice Blue, Ink Blue, and Emerald Green provide the strongest colour options; Chiffon, White, and Old Gold complete the selection. If your room already leans into grey, silver, or blue tones and you want a blind that intensifies that direction, the Akoya is the natural match.

The lustre finish is not suited to every room. In spaces with strong directional daylight - a south-facing room, a bay window - the reflectivity reads as deliberate and considered. In a dimmer north-facing room, a lustre fabric can look flat or slightly clinical. The colour palette also reinforces this: the greys and silvers work best with good light to animate them.

Compared with the Kyoto, the Akoya starts at a lower price point, which makes the "best lustre" pick also competitive on value for the right palette. If the Akoya's palette matches your room, there is no reason to spend more on the Kyoto simply for sheen level.

Best value
Opulent Faux Silk

Opulent Faux Silk

at Make My Blinds

A faux-silk roman from Make My Blinds at a gentler price.

from £12.17 in 17 colours

Read review →

The Opulent Faux Silk from Make My Blinds is our best-value pick - it sits at the lowest price-from of the three ranges covered here, and offers a faux silk roman format with a palette character that is noticeably distinct from the two 247 Blinds options.

The 11 colour options lean towards warm, deep, and slightly unconventional shades: Aged Bronze, Blushed Olive, Industrial Iron, Osmium, Palladium, and Shallow Waters sit in a muted metallic-to-sage range; Vibrant Terracotta, Mahogany Red, and Berry Processco are the warmest and most saturated choices; Brave Navy and Light Gold round out the selection. This palette is the most distinctive of the three picks - it is not trying to compete with the Kyoto's neutral breadth or the Akoya's silver-grey concentration. If you want a terracotta, olive, or deep navy for a room with a warmer or more eclectic scheme, the Opulent is the place to look.

Make My Blinds tends to position at a gentler price level than 247 Blinds for comparable window sizes, which is the practical reason this is the value pick. The fabric is a faux silk construction in a similar dimout character to the other two - the sheen level is in the standard rather than lustre register, so it is closer in feel to the Kyoto than the Akoya.

The colour names here give a clearer signal about palette intent than the more descriptive names in the other ranges - "Vibrant Terracotta" and "Brave Navy" set expectations more directly than "Brun" or "Hare". That transparency is useful when ordering made-to-measure without seeing a physical sample first.

What we didn't include

All three picks are roman blinds because faux silk as a made-to-measure blind fabric is almost exclusively offered in the roman format. The fabric's characteristics - mid-weight, drapy, with a reflective surface - suit the folded roman structure well and are poorly served by a roller format, where the fabric would wind onto a tube and the pile and sheen would not read clearly in the rolled position. Roman blind alternatives in faux silk are where the category genuinely lives.

We focused on solid-colour faux silk fabrics rather than printed or jacquard variants. Printed romans are a distinct decorating choice and belong in their own consideration - the point of faux silk is the fabric's inherent light quality rather than a surface pattern laid over it. If you are looking for a patterned roman with some sheen, that is a separate search.