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Here at All Kent Shutters and Blinds, we offer Venetian Blinds in both wood and metal - but before purchasing your Venetian blinds, you may be interested to know how they came to be. After all, they have a distinctive and easily recognisable design that suggests centuries of gradual refinement. Indeed, the history of these blinds does go back hundreds of years - and it's a history that abounds in fascinating developments, but also a significant degree of mystery. Less-than-clear origins Perhaps the biggest mystery about these blinds concerns their exact origins. Even today, it's not publicly known for certain, although it has been speculated that, contrary to what their name suggests, they originated not from the Italian canal city of Venice, but instead Persia. This is the name historically used by the West to refer to what is now Iran, in the Middle East. Interestingly, in France today, the blinds are called "les Persiennes". According to one legend, early Venetian traders took these blinds home from Persia - before, in the 18th century, former Venetian slaves settling in France introduced them there. However, it has also been suggested that Venetian Blinds could date as far back as ancient Egypt. That country's civilisation certainly did have slatted blinds, choosing to make them from reeds. A better-documented history In any case, most experts believe that the first examples of these blinds appeared around 1760. Back then, they comprised two-inch wooden slats coupled with cloth ribbons. It didn't take long for them to gain popularity from that point on, with the Philadelphia-based St. Peter's Church being decorated with them as early as 1761. New York City's RCA Building, now the GE Building, gained such blinds after opening in the 1930s. Today, you can turn to All Kent Shutters and Blinds to order Venetian blinds made from metal, wood or a combination of both - our Unity blinds fall into that last category. These blinds combine 50mm aluminium slats with a wood valance and bottom rail to visually pleasing effect, and you can read a lot more about them on our website, which details our various other made to measure blinds and shutters.
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