S-fold or pinch pleat?

What each one actually is.

S-fold, also sold as wave or ripple fold, is a continuous soft wave running the full width of the curtain. There are no individual pleats. The shape is created and held by a special track with evenly spaced carriers, so the fabric is locked into a repeating S curve from top to bottom and stays that way whether the curtain is open or closed.

Pinch pleat is the classic. The fabric is gathered and stitched into discrete pleats at the top, either double (two folds per pleat) or triple (three folds, fuller and more formal), then hung on hooks that drop into gliders on a track or rings on a rod. The pleats are fixed by the stitching, not by the hardware, which is why pinch pleat works on almost any track or rod.

Side by side.

The track compatibility trap.

This is the point people miss until the quote arrives. S-fold is not a heading you can simply choose. It is a system. The wave only exists because the track holds each carrier at a fixed spacing, so the fabric has no option but to fall into the S curve. Hang an S-fold curtain on an ordinary hook-and-glider track and it will sag between the hooks and look like a mistake.

Practically, that means two things. If you are furnishing a new build in Officer or one of the Pakenham estates from scratch, the track is being bought anyway, so S-fold costs you the fullness difference and not much else. If you already have serviceable tracks and want to change the look, you are replacing hardware too, which is $220 to $600 on most spans. In that situation re-heading the existing curtains to pinch pleat at $120 to $300 each is often the better value move, as covered in curtain alterations.

Stack-back: how much wall the open curtain eats.

Stack-back is the width the curtain occupies when it is fully open, and it is the number that decides whether your window looks generous or half covered. As a planning rule, allow around 15 to 20 percent of the track length for pinch pleat and 20 to 25 percent for S-fold, because the wave holds its shape and traps more air where pleats compress against each other.

On a 4 metre track that is roughly 600mm to 800mm per side for pinch pleat and 800mm to 1 metre for S-fold. If there is not that much wall beside your window, the curtain has to stack over the glass, and you lose light and view every day of the year to a heading choice. On wide stacker doors the answer is often a one-way draw stacking entirely to the side that has wall, which is discussed in curtains for sliding doors.

What each heading costs.

S-fold carries roughly a 10 to 20 percent premium over comparable pinch pleat. Most of that is fabric: 2.4 times fullness on a 3 metre track is 7.2 metres of gathered width against 6.3 metres at 2.1 times, and that difference is both material and make-up labour. Add the compatible track and the gap widens on a retrofit. In round terms, sheers in S-fold run $280 to $700 per window and lined blockout pinch pleat $350 to $900. The mechanics behind those numbers are set out in the Pakenham cost guide.

Which suits your house.

Choose S-fold if you have a newer home with square-set ceilings or minimal cornice, large windows or a stacker door, plenty of wall beside the glass for the stack, and you want a clean contemporary line. It is outstanding in sheers across a wide span, which is why it is the default in the Pakenham and Officer estates.

Choose pinch pleat if your house has character, your windows are narrower or have bays, you want to use a decorative rod, you are working around existing tracks, or you simply prefer a more traditional look. It is the right answer in most of Beaconsfield and Garfield, where moulded architraves and period detail make a wave heading look out of place.

The other headings, briefly.

• Pencil pleat: a gathered tape drawn up into a dense row of narrow folds. Economical and forgiving on older or uneven windows.
• Eyelet: metal rings punched through the fabric, sliding straight onto a rod. Casual, rod-only, lower fullness, and the cheapest to make. Fine in a kids room or a rental, not a formal look.
• Tab top: fabric loops over a rod. Very casual, and awkward to draw because the loops drag on the rod.

Frequently asked questions.