How do you make a high quality decorative pillow? When we started we didn't know either so we went to the New York Public Library (a great place to learn anything). There, we learned the obvious; that the quality of a decorative pillow is a combination of the materials used and how they are assembled. Since we always personally select the fabrics, findings and trims, these wouldn't be a problem. So, the question became, how to assemble a quality decorative pillow?
We spent time in high-end stores in a number of cities (we travel a lot so we did a pretty good survey of major stores in multiple countries) looking at the insides of decorative pillows. One common factor, the salespeople were always surprised when we opened the zippers and looked inside. However, based on the best construction practices of decorative pillows costing $100 to $500 each, we developed a set of specifications (12 pages as of the date I am writing this but it keeps growing). The illustration at right summarizes the critical elements we feel you should expect in any quality pillow. You will find these elements in every pillow we sell because we only sell pillows that we have custom made to our specifications.
So, next time you are looking at a decorative pillow in a store, turn it inside-out and compare the construction techniques to the illustration. Not only will you be able to tell if it is a quality pillow, you will really surprise the salesperson ;-).
About Real Silk
At Just Decorative Pillows, we primarily use silk (except for our synthetic suede casual pillows). Silk is a unique fabric - closer to hair than to cotton. Silk is unwound from the cocoon of the silkworm moth, as opposed to a chemical extruded out of a machine, so real silk fabric has thread breaks resulting in tiny bumps in the fabric as well as small lines and other imperfections. You will see these imperfections in all our silk fabrics. These slight imperfections are trademarks of real silk and make each piece unique.
