FAQ's
What where the earliest types of Venetian blind?
The History of Venetian Blinds
Venetian blinds were the earliest type of sunblind and their history can be traced back to around 4000BC in Persepolis in Persia. Then perforated clay tiles were used to cover window openings. In most European languages this slatted type of shutter blind is still known as the Persienne blind from these early origins. This was later incorrectly translated into English as the Venetian Blind. Later Persienne also described a style of shutter blind that was made from alabaster and marble and found in Minoic Crete.
By Roman times glass began to replace shutters and this decline continued into the middle ages, when fear of light caused windows to become exceedingly small. By the 16th century window sizes had increased but were usually covered with parchment or oiled linen cloth. This later developed into the Scotch Holland roller blind of the 19th and early 20th centuries to become the spring roller blind of today.
“French Windows” that were introduced during the French renaissance incorporated the first wood sunshades. At first these were like wooden shutters and evolved in time into Venetian blinds that were able to be raised and then tilted. The timber slatted Venetian blind became very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries until in the 1940’s the introduction of aluminium started to replace the wooden slats. The early aluminium blind still retained the timber rail sections, cast metal fittings and wide cotton tapes of the timber blind. The Hallmark Regency blind re-creates the design of this period.
By the late 1940's and early 1950's pressed steel fittings and mass production techniques had been introduced. The development of plastic in the 60’s led to the use of nylon components which significantly reduced the size of the rail sections. Automated machinery for manufacture was developed which now forms the slat, punches it and threads it between the ladderbraid. Even timber blinds are now fabricated on automatic machines considerably reducing manufacturing times and thus the cost of the finished blind.
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