Harlequin Blinds: The Designs, and Where to Buy Them

Harlequin is a contemporary design house whose bold, often abstract prints are a common sight in modern British interiors. The designs are licensed and made up as made-to-measure blinds by several UK retailers, which means the same named print - Acropora, Estrato, Melora - turns up at more than one shop, at prices worth comparing.

Harlequin blinds are sold by 3 UK retailers we track, from £42.00, as roman blinds. The same named designs turn up across these shops at near-identical prices - a strong sign it is the same licensed cloth - so the choice comes down to price, construction and fitting rather than the fabric itself.

The thing worth knowing before you buy

Harlequin prints are licensed designs, not one retailer's own range. The same design, at the same scale, is supplied to several shops that each sell it under their own range name and pricing. So when you find "Harlequin Acropora roman blind" at more than one retailer, it is almost certainly the same cloth - which means the sensible thing is to compare on price, on construction (lined or unlined, blackout or not) and on fitting, rather than on which shop has the "real" fabric.

Below, each design lists the retailers we track that currently sell it, ordered by price from low to high, with a link through to each.

Acropora

Acropora is the design to reach for if you want a Harlequin print to be the feature of the room. It is a branching, coral-like repeat - the name is a genus of reef coral - drawn large and in confident grounds such as Brazilian Rosewood and Nectar. It suits a roman fold, where the pattern sits flat, and it is carried across several of the retailers we track, so despite being one of the boldest designs it is straightforward to compare on price.

Carried by 3 of the retailers we track:

Shade & Story from £42.00 2 colourways · roller
Blinds Direct from £94.04 1 colourway · roman
Wilsons Blinds from £94.55 1 colourway · roman

Estrato

Estrato is the most versatile of the widely carried designs - a repeat of layered horizontal bands that reads as pattern up close and almost as a texture from across a room. It is sold in both roman and roller formats and across a wide colour range, from warm Rust Ruby to cool Denim Sky, which makes it one of the easier Harlequin designs to fit into an existing scheme.

Carried by 3 of the retailers we track:

Shade & Story from £42.00 2 colourways · roller
Blinds Direct from £54.15 2 colourways · roman
Wilsons Blinds from £54.42 2 colourways · roman

Melora

Melora is the softer, more painterly option, sold in an unusually wide spread of colourways and as both a roman and a blackout roller. That blackout version is worth noting: it is the pick if you want a designer print in a bedroom where you also want the room dark, which not every design in the collection offers.

Carried by 3 of the retailers we track:

Shade & Story from £45.00 2 colourways · roller
Blinds Direct from £86.31 2 colourways · roman
Wilsons Blinds from £86.77 2 colourways · roman

The rest of the collection

Each design below is sold by at least two of the retailers we track, so the same price comparison applies. Colourways differ between shops, so click through to see which grounds each retailer carries.

Entity

A cleaner, more graphic design in grounds such as Brick and Denim - the pick if you want a contemporary Harlequin print without a large floral or organic repeat.

Carried by 3 of the retailers we track:

Shade & Story from £42.00 2 colourways · roller
Blinds Direct from £47.63 1 colourway · roman
Wilsons Blinds from £47.86 1 colourway · roman

Diffuse

A soft, blurred design in muted Slate and Ecru - the quietest of the prints here, and the one that reads most like a textured neutral from a distance.