Ready Made Curtain - Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec

Bouroullec Brothers design Ready Made Curtain

New work for Kvadrat requires a degree of user assembly but don't worry: "The charm of the imperfect in opposition to the overly sanitised interior, is something we believe in," says Erwan Bouroullec (ie: you can't mess it up)

Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec have spoken in the past about why a chair is like a pop song - now they've come up with a DIY kit for making curtains using a hanging cord that winds taught like a guitar string. Once again they have teamed up with long term partners textile company Kvadrat, this time to create an original and simple hanging system to suit every window. It launches later this month. 

According to Kvadrat, Ready Made Curtain requires the participation of the owner in its making. Thankfully, that owner does not to have to possess the considerable design talents of the brothers. Everything one needs to fix the curtain is provided: a hanging cord, wall fixings, pegs, and a selection of Kvadrat textiles.

 

Ready Made Curtain - Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
Ready Made Curtain - Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec

"The ambition was to create a new system that allows anyone to install a quality curtain in record time," says Ronan. "Little skill and few tools are needed, margin for error has been considered and perfection isn’t an absolute requirement. In fact, the charm of the imperfect in opposition to the overly sanitised interior, is something we believe in," adds Erwan Bouroullec.

The mechanics of the new hanging system have been refined over and over again by the designers until the absolute minimum required material and skill were achieved. They call it a "purposefully elementary product". 

 "We wanted to escape a hi-tech situation but we didn’t want to make something rustic or heavy either. We reflected on the popular method of fixing a poster to a wall, just simply with a staple." Similarly, Ready Made Curtain is an enjoyably effortless method of fixing fabric to a window.The ingenuity of the hanging cord – a replacement for the traditional curtain pole – is found in the winding mechanism that enables it to fit any window." 

 

Ready Made Curtain - Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
Ready Made Curtain - Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec

The brothers claim their inspiration from a picture in a Japanese book from the fifties. "The book was a catalogue of objects and in it was a guitar. From there, we began to explore the system of string tension in guitars.” The cord is an efficient and elegant solution to hanging a curtain. It can be rewound when needs be, in order to maintain the right tension, and is easily transferable from window to window.

Ready Made Curtain is available in two different Kvadrat fabrics: a light, semi-transparent fabric or a woollen textile to allow light in or to provide privacy. Both are available in three different colourways and, in turn, a different colour palette of the mechanism, cord and pegs.

 

Ready Made Curtain  -Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
Ready Made Curtain -Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec

Ready Made Curtain follows the evolution of previous collaborations between the Bouroullecs and Kvadrat in that it allows the user the opportunity to adapt, change and enhance their interior through the use of textiles.

"One of the ambitions of our work with Kvadrat is to bring more fabric into interiors," they say. "The difference between this and previous products, such as Clouds and North Tiles, is that here we chose not to do any intervention on the fabric. The system is very simple, we have used the lightest touch." Check out more of the Bouroullecs exquisite designs in their book Works and read our extensive Bouroullec Brothers online content.