The Genoa Faux Silk Shimmer range from 247 Blinds is a made-to-measure roman blind offered in 5 shades, starting from £15.00. It is a roman blind that draws up into soft horizontal pleats, finished in a faux silk cloth with a shimmering surface, and unusually for a dressy fabric of this kind the shades are blackout - so the look is decorative but the function is room darkening.
Who it suits
Roman blinds suit rooms where the covering is part of the decor - living rooms, bedrooms and dining rooms - because the stacked folds give a softer, more upholstered look than a flat roller. The shimmer finish adds a little glamour at the window, catching the light across the cloth. The blackout fabric makes this range a strong fit for bedrooms in particular, and for any room where you want to block daylight while keeping a furnishing-led, decorative blind rather than a plain functional one.
Being a roman, it is less suited to steamy kitchens and bathrooms, where the fabric folds can trap moisture and dry slowly. Note too that a blackout roman darkens the room through the body of the cloth; a small amount of light can still edge around the sides of any blind mounted within the recess, so an outside-the-recess fit, or pairing with curtains, helps where total darkness matters most.
The combination here is the point worth dwelling on: a blackout function and a dressy, shimmering finish do not often come together. Most decorative romans filter light, and most blackout fabrics are plain, so a shimmer cloth that also darkens a room covers two briefs at once.
The colours
5 colours available
The palette runs across warm and cool neutrals with a richer accent. Cream is the softest, warmest tone; Sterling and Silver give cool greys; Night provides the deepest, darkest shade; and Gold brings a warmer, more decorative note in the yellow family that plays to the shimmer finish. That spread lets you keep a bedroom restrained with the cream or greys, go darker and more dramatic with Night, or lean into the dressier side of the range with Gold. The shades coordinate well across several windows in one room. A shimmer cloth shifts noticeably with the light and viewing angle, so order a sample before committing to a full-sized blind to judge the finish in your own room.
Price by your dimensions
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The range is offered in two fittings. The standard fitting is the more affordable route and sets the entry price; a no-drill fitting is also available and starts higher, for windows where you would rather not screw into the frame - uPVC and bifolds, typically. The price follows the size of your window in either case, so the figure above adjusts to the dimensions you enter.
How it compares
Against a roller blind, the Genoa roman trades flat simplicity for soft folds and a shimmer finish - it is the more decorative choice, though it gathers fabric at the head when raised. Against a standard light-filtering roman, the point of difference here is the blackout cloth: you get the soft-fold, dressy look but with genuine room darkening, which most decorative romans do not offer. Against a venetian or vertical, there is no slat tilt; light control is up-and-down, and a venetian's gaps between slats would always leak light where this blackout fabric does not.
A note on care
Shimmer faux silk roman fabrics need gentle handling. Dust the folds regularly with a soft brush or a vacuum upholstery attachment on low suction. Spot-clean marks with a barely damp cloth rather than soaking the cloth, which can mark a sheen finish, and let the blind dry fully before raising it. Keep these romans out of consistently damp rooms, where the folds are slow to dry.