A brief history of Venetian Blinds

Venetian blinds have adorned windows around the world for hundreds of years, with their practicality and great looking slat design offering privacy and light control.

But where did they come from?

Venetian blinds did not actually originate in Venice but rather started their inception in the east in Persia. Long beforehand, the Chinese would tie bamboo together to make window shades, but it was the Persians who first created the slat design that we see today.

The final solution came because of the Venetian and Persian merchants, who would go back and forth from their trading point in the Middle East to a popular trading zone near the Italian coast.

Already popular throughout Venice, Venetian blinds took over in popularity from Roman blinds currently being used in Venice to keep out the sunlight and dust and debris from the roads. These blinds would further develop to include wooden slats laid across ribbons of fabric.

Venetian blinds then travelled west by the now freed Venetian slaves who would sell them as a form of livelihood, finally settling in France. Here, another name for the blinds came to be, where they were referred to as ‘les Persiennes’, as acknowledgement of the Persian roots.

From France, the Venetian blind design travelled to the west to America, where wooden Venetian blinds inparticular became very popular, mostly because the fabric used to make curtains was needed to be imported from England at that time, along with a large tax.

Aluminium venetian blinds were first made in the mid 1940’s by Hunter Douglas and his network of distributors. This design was further altered in the 1970’s with a narrowing of the slats, producing the sleek contemporary design that’s available today.

Venetian blinds are still a very popular choice today, with homes and offices all over the world taking advantage of their many benefits for privacy, light control and insulation.

Need some Venetian blinds?

If you’d like a little piece of History in your home, give our friendly team a call today on 1300 550 552 for venetian blinds in Melbourne at great prices.