Curtain Heading Styles Explained: Pencil Pleat, Eyelet, Wave and More

Most people choose a curtain fabric first and worry about the heading afterwards. It is worth doing it the other way around. The heading is the strip at the top of the curtain that gathers the fabric and attaches it to the track or rod, and it quietly decides three things: how much fabric you need to buy, how the folds hang, and what hardware the curtain can go on.

Get it right and a modest fabric looks generous. Get it wrong and an expensive fabric hangs flat and disappointing. Here is what the common heading names actually mean.

What a heading does

A curtain heading is created by sewing a tape into the top hem, or by punching rings through it. The tape has cords or pockets built in. When the cords are drawn up, or the hooks are placed in particular pockets, the flat width of fabric is pulled into folds. Different tapes produce different fold shapes and different depths.

Two ideas run through everything below. The first is fullness, which is the ratio between the flat fabric width and the finished width of the curtain on the rail. A curtain made from three metres of fabric that finishes at one and a half metres wide has been gathered to roughly double fullness. The second is stack back, which is how much wall space the curtain occupies when it is fully open. Deeper, crisper folds generally take up more stack back, which matters on a window where you want maximum glass exposed during the day.

The main heading styles

Pencil pleat

The everyday standard. A gathering tape draws the fabric into narrow, upright folds that look a little like a row of pencils. It suits almost any fabric weight, it is forgiving of slight measuring errors because the gather can be adjusted, and it works on both tracks and rods. Fullness is commonly around two to two and a half times the rail width, depending on the tape and how tightly it is drawn.

Choose it when you want something classic and uncomplicated, or when you are working to a tighter fabric budget and want the gather to do the work.

Eyelet, also called rod style

Metal rings are set directly into the top of the curtain and the rod passes through them. The result is a deep, even wave that reads as modern and slightly informal. Eyelet curtains slide easily by hand, which is part of why they are so popular in living rooms and children’s rooms.

Two practical points. Eyelets need a rod, not a track, because the ring has to travel over a round pole. And because the top of the curtain sits below the rod rather than in front of it, eyelet headings let a thin line of light in at the top, which is worth knowing if the room is a bedroom.

Wave

Wave headings hang from a specialised track using evenly spaced glides, producing a continuous soft S curve from top to bottom with no visible pleat at all. It is the cleanest, most architectural of the headings, and it is the one that flatters plain fabrics and sheers most.

Wave depends on the right track and the right spacing, so it is a heading to specify at quoting stage rather than change your mind about later. Curtain Master lists both a wave style and a waterfall style among its heading options, along with an allusion wave blind for people who like the look but want a blind mechanism.

Pinch pleat and fork hook pleat

Here the fabric is pinched into groups at the top, usually in twos or threes, and stitched or hooked to hold the shape. The pleats stay sharp whether the curtain is open or closed, which gives a tailored, formal finish. Pinch pleats are the traditional choice for dining rooms, formal lounges and anywhere you want the curtain to look deliberate.

They need more fabric than a pencil pleat for the same finished width, and they hold their shape best in fabrics with some body.

Goblet

A goblet heading is a pinch pleat that has been opened out at the top into a small rounded cup, often stuffed lightly so it holds its shape. It reads as the most formal option of the lot and it suits high windows and long drops where there is room for the detail to be seen. On a short window it can look top heavy.

Pocket, fan pleat and specialist tapes

A pocket heading, sometimes called a rod pocket, is a simple sewn channel that the rod threads through. It is neat and inexpensive, but the curtain does not slide easily, so it suits fixed dress curtains rather than ones you open and close daily.

Beyond these, there are tapes built for particular jobs: honeycomb header tape, six string tape, crystal tape, equi-pleat and bull nose headers all appear on Curtain Master’s curtain range, alongside swag and tail treatments for people who want a shaped pelmet effect. These are worth asking about in the showroom rather than choosing from a photograph, because the difference is in how they hang rather than how they look flat.

How the heading changes what you spend on fabric

Because fullness is a ratio, the heading is the single biggest driver of fabric quantity. A pleated heading on a three metre window can easily need double the fabric of the finished width, and the crisper pleat styles tend to sit at the higher end of that range. If a quote for a patterned fabric comes back higher than expected, the heading is usually part of the reason, along with pattern repeat, which forces extra fabric so the design lines up across the join.

This is also why comparing quotes on price per metre alone is misleading. Two quotes can use the same fabric and differ significantly because they assume different fullness.

Track or rod

Eyelet and pocket headings need a rod. Wave needs its own track system. Pencil pleat, pinch pleat and goblet can go on either, which means the decision becomes aesthetic: a visible timber or metal pole becomes part of the room, while a track can be tucked behind a pelmet or fitted close to the ceiling so the curtain appears to fall from nowhere. Curtain Master stocks curtain rods, brackets, rings, finials and pelmets alongside its fabrics, so the hardware can be matched to the heading at the same time.

Choosing by room

Bedrooms reward headings that close tightly and pair well with a blockout lining. Living areas that open onto a patio often do better with a heading that stacks back neatly, so the doorway is not obstructed. Formal rooms carry pinch pleat and goblet comfortably. Sheers can take almost any heading, but wave and pencil pleat show them off best because neither competes with the transparency of the fabric.

Before you order

Settle four things: where the curtain will finish at the bottom, whether it is going on a track or a rod, whether you want a lining, and which heading. Once those are fixed, the measurements and the fabric quantity follow.

Curtain Master makes custom curtains in a range of heading styles and also carries readymade curtains, with fabrics, linings and sheers available at the Morningside, Springfield and Port Shepstone showrooms. If you would like a quote for a specific window, you can request a quote or see the full curtain range.