Panel blinds are sliding panels that stack one-in-front-of-the-other on a white aluminium headrail, usually with a side cord control. Each panel drags the next along, like a train drawing carriages. They have been particularly popular in Southern Europe but have become more common now in the UK, and have morphed into Shoji Blinds- otherwise known as Japanese Panel Blinds. Panel blinds are a cheaper alternative and are a great room divider as well as an ideal blind against strong sunlight. During the 1990s we sold more and more panels, especially in London (where all fashion starts!) at large apartment block windows. The national firm ‘Luxaflex’ and ourselves began producing panel blinds with horizontal wood trims to resemble Japanese Shoji blinds, although for Luxaflex it was a fairly short period of panel blinds sales. It was in 2011 when we were asked by a delightful lady customer if we could put the wood trim all the way around like on Japanese Shojis- so we did and we still use that photo today on our websites! Having put the photo then in with other panel blind job photos and on our websites we then had customers asking for the same thing- average panel blind sales leapt overnight from typically £600 to £1,200 per sale, and we had a Japanese TV company call us to ask our opinion of the effect of Japanese culture on Western civilisation! Also we had Channel 4 ‘phone us to ask us to make Shoji blinds for a new programme with Sarah Beeny- ‘Double Your House For Half The Money’. We were told by our suppliers that it was just a ‘niche’ market and if we got a couple of website ‘hits’ that would be great. As it happened, we made lots of these new Shoji blinds for the featured home and although we were never mentioned on the programme we had 2,500 ‘hits’ within 2 hours of the programme airing. In the end, we had over 10,000 ‘hits’ and we realised panel blinds were definitely being replaced by Shoji blinds!
However, panel blinds are still popular as a cheaper alternative to Shojis and we can give you a quote- call 0115 9671188.