By Sophie Donelson

	Offerings from fabric houses like Lee Jofa, Glant, and Jack Lenor Larsen include mohair, velvet and cut velvet, and silk. Layering on several textures in one shade such as crimson is a simple way to create a dramatic room.

How do you take a room from fine to fabulous? It’s as simple as changing your point of view, says Manhattan-based interior designer Darren Henault. “Too many people treat a room as two-dimensional—all visual,” he says. Henault’s simple solution is to use lush fabrics to ratchet up a room’s potential.

While designers tout textiles as one of the easiest ways to update a room (sans power tools), many people find choosing fabrics for their home a daunting task. It is about as difficult as a clotheshorse picking an outfit: The possibilities are staggering.

Some decisions are simple. Color and pattern are often first-impulse decisions—a pea green velvet or blue and white toile, for example, inspires only love or disgust. Choosing textured fabrics can be trickier: brocade or damask? velvet or mohair? In the case of upholstery, at least, your biggest ally is touch. But be smart about choosing a fiber content that can withstand the job. A designer or showroom professional can veer you toward hardy fabrics for high-traffic areas, delicates for windows, and even stain- or sun-resistant fabrics for children’s rooms or outdoor areas.

“You need to experience a room with as many senses as possible,” says Henault, who has created high-end residences for clients from Boston to Beverly Hills. “A beautiful chair upholstered in a solid wool is only a pretty chair. But cover it in linen, velvet, chenille, or bouclé, and it’s no longer just the chair, it’s ‘Wow, I didn’t realize this.’” The impact of touch is big, but it won’t overwhelm a room’s rhythm like a bold pattern or color might. Like a cashmere sweater, only the user (and her closest friends) enjoys the chair’s tactile pleasure.

Beyond the obvious benefits of upping a room’s luxury quotient, fabric gives homeowners an opportunity to take chances, says Gretchen Bellinger, a textile designer with a self-named line. Bellinger has made her name with a superfine, short-pile velvet called Limousine Cloth, but she’s also the talent behind dozens of adventurous fabrics, such as Road to Riches, a neutral linen dusted with glitter, like cinnamon sugar on toast.

“There should always be something in the room that makes you smile, and glitter does that,” says Bellinger. “You don’t have to do the whole room, you only need a little touch.” She suggests using “a sparkly fabric as welting on a pillow or sofa edge, or as a throw. It adds a bit of wit.” Bellinger uses Road to Riches as blinds for her lakeside camp in the Adirondacks, where the reflection of the water makes them shimmer. Depending on lighting and the time of day, she notes, fabrics with a little luster can be subtle or dramatic.

Of course, never take choosing textiles too seriously; one of their most wonderful assets is that they can be updated with relative ease. And, as GretchenBellinger puts it, “fabric should never be the focus. The focal point is you and me.”