Roller Shades
Roller shades from Exotic Shades & Draperies are cut to the millimeter in our Fort Lauderdale workroom in Mermet and Phifer solar screens woven in the USA, light-filtering and blackout fabrics, including every Lutron colourway, with cassette, fascia or open-roll hardware and Lutron or Somfy motorization, installed by our own team from Miami Beach to Palm Beach.
The modern workhorse of window treatments
Roller shades are the quiet foundation of contemporary South Florida interiors: a clean tube, a perfect hem, and exactly the fabric your room needs - solar screens that tame glare while keeping the view, translucent weaves that glow with soft light, or true blackout for bedrooms and media rooms.
Every shade is cut to the millimeter in our Fort Lauderdale workroom from Coulisse and premium performance fabrics, with cassettes, fascias, or open rolls to suit the architecture - and motorization by Lutron, Somfy, or SDN whenever you want it.
Roller shades by the numbers
Openness and heat
Solar screens come in 1%, 3%, 5% and 10% openness. In Mermet E Screen charcoal, total solar transmittance is 3% at 1%, 5% at 3%, 7% at 5% and 12% at 10%; the view-through rating climbs from 25% to 81% across the same range. See the openness guide.
Width in one piece
Lutron solar-screen fabrics run to 124 in usable width (E Screen 120 in), blackout fabrics to 116 in and light-filtering weaves to 116 in. Wider openings are built as coupled shades on one motor line.
Motors
Somfy Sonesse ULTRA 30 WireFree: rechargeable lithium-ion, 2 Nm of lift, rated 42 dB, RTS radio with 656 ft open-field range. Lutron Triathlon: replaceable D batteries rated by Lutron at three to five years.
Price
One 72 by 84 in motorized roller shade, fabric and motor included: about $733 on our Essential tier, $793 on Somfy WireFree, $1,910 on wired Somfy with its power panel, $3,141 on Lutron. Full table on the cost by system page.
Fabrics, openness & hardware
Solar Screen Fabrics
1%–10% openness factors that cut heat and UV while preserving your water view - the South Florida essential.
Translucent & Light-Filtering
Soft, diffused daylight with full privacy - beautiful in living spaces and baths.
True Blackout
Coated fabrics, side channels, and precise hembars for total darkness.
Cassettes & Fascias
Concealed rolls, architectural fascias, or minimalist open rolls - matched to your interior.
Dual & Day-Night Rollers
Solar + blackout on one bracket, both rollers hidden in one 5 x 5 in Vertilux fascia, for full flexibility in one window. Explore dual roller shades. Prefer the banded look? See our zebra shades.
Motorized Roller Shades
Our specialty - see motorized shades and Lutron shades.
Recent installations
Solar Rollers
Blackout Rollers
Bath Roller Shade
Roller shades, built to the millimeter
A roller shade is only as good as its tube, its hem and its fit. We fabricate on precision cutting equipment so a bank of five shades across a window wall hangs with identical light gaps, we finish hems by hand, and we size the tube diameter to the drop so long shades do not telescope. Fascia, cassette or open roll; reverse roll to clear a door handle; side channels where blackout matters; a manual clutch for a small window, a Lutron, Somfy or SDN motor for anything wide, tall or repeated.
Choosing the fabric for a South Florida window
Solar screens from Mermet and Phifer - including Mermet KOOLBLACK charcoal weaves - in 1% to 10% openness for glare and heat with the view kept; translucent weaves for privacy with a soft glow; coated blackout fabrics for bedrooms and media rooms; dual roller shades that pair a solar and a blackout on one bracket. Exposure decides openness: a west-facing Intracoastal wall in Fort Lauderdale or a bay-facing Brickell wall wants 3% or tighter, while a north-facing room can take 10% and keep the view almost untouched.
Frequently asked
Inside mount or outside mount roller shades?
Inside mount sits within the frame for the cleanest look; an outside mount roller shade overlaps the opening for better blackout and suits shallow frames. We decide per window - see our inside vs. outside mount guide.
Which openness factor should I choose?
For strong sun and water views, 3%–5% solar fabrics balance glare control and view. We bring samples so you can judge in your own light.
Can roller shades be blackout?
Yes - blackout fabrics with optional side channels give true darkness for bedrooms and media rooms.
Can they be motorized?
All of them - battery or wired Lutron, Somfy, or SDN motors. See motorized shades.
Do you install in condos?
Every week - battery motorization means no wiring and no HOA approvals in most buildings.
Can you match a blackout and a solar in one window?
Yes - a dual roller puts a solar screen and a blackout on one bracket, so the same window gives you view by day and darkness at night.
How do you keep a row of roller shades looking even?
Same fabric lot, tubes sized to the drop, hembars aligned and light gaps set identically - fabricated on precision equipment in our own workroom and installed by our own team.
Woven in the USA. Specified by the numbers.
A roller shade is a tube, a bracket and a fabric, and only one of the three decides how it looks in year five. Ours come from Mermet, woven in South Carolina, and Phifer SheerWeave, woven in Alabama, in their best grades only - sourced directly, so the same weave rides a Lutron motor, a Somfy motor or a manual chain.
Mermet
E Screen, M Screen, T Screen, Satiné and the GreenScreen weaves, with KOOLBLACK for dark screens that reflect heat - woven by Mermet USA in Cowpens, South Carolina and listed by the mill as Made in USA. Mermet fabrics
Phifer SheerWeave
The SheerWeave family, including PVC-free styles and Microban-protected weaves that resist mildew in Florida humidity - woven by Phifer in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where the mill has made fabric since 1952. Phifer fabrics
Best grade only
Fiberglass-core screens that stay flat on 10-foot glass, an openness woven to tolerance, and a published spec sheet for UV, heat and light in every colour, with GREENGUARD Gold and NFPA 701 listings behind it. Never anonymous screen.
On any system
The same fabric on a Lutron, Somfy or Crestron motor, or a manual chain. We source both mills directly and keep them in stock, so the fabric is chosen for the window and its exposure, not for the motor brand - and it is ready to cut when the measurements are. Our shade fabrics
Discerning homeowners, designers, and developers across South Florida trust Exotic with their most important spaces.
"I'm really happy with my new curtains! The team came to my place, helped me choose the right fabric, and guided me through the whole process. Great service and beautiful results. Highly recommend, A+."
"We were referred to Exotic Shades by our contractor. They understood exactly what we had in mind and delivered it. The whole process was simple, and the pricing was very good."
"I needed help adjusting the existing Lutron shades in my new home. Most companies would not touch a system installed by someone else, but Exotic sent a technician the same week."
Control systems these shades answer to
Every motorized system we install runs from a remote, an app or the home's control system. Which one depends on the motor family, so we settle it before the shade is made.
Lutron
Sivoia QS, Triathlon, Serena and Palladiom shades: Pico remotes and the Lutron app, with native integration to Crestron, Control4, Savant, Apple Home, Amazon Alexa and Google Home through Caseta, RadioRA 3 or HomeWorks. Lutron motorized shades.
Somfy
Sonesse, Glydea and WireFree motors on Somfy RTS or Zigbee: Telis and Situo remotes, the TaHoma app for scenes and schedules, Amazon Alexa and Google Home through TaHoma, and Control4, Crestron and Savant through the TaHoma integration. Somfy motorization.
Crestron
Crestron shade motors and drapery tracks commissioned into the home's Crestron processor and keypads with your integrator, with the fabric, hems and hembars still made in our workroom. Crestron shades.
Roller shades in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Boca Raton & Palm Beach
Roller shades in solar, translucent and blackout fabrics, hand-finished hems, cordless or motorized on Lutron and Somfy - the quiet foundation of contemporary South Florida interiors. Our workroom and showroom are at 4539 Powerline Rd in Fort Lauderdale, our second showroom is South of Fifth in Miami Beach, and the same in-house team measures and installs from Miami to Palm Beach.
The right roller shade for every window
One free hour with our team routinely saves owners thousands in avoidable mistakes - wrong fabrics, bad mounts, missed motorization. Book a private, complimentary consultation - we bring the fabrics, the samples, and honest answers. Start with the free guide: the 5 costly mistakes.