To think John Lewis are trying to have me over?

[Allthefoodandwine]

Morning!

Hoping to get a more sensible response on here, than I have been getting from John Lewis Customer services.

Ordered some ‘made to order’ curtains on the John Lewis site, curtains arrived, and they have used Black Cotton/thread on very light curtains?
Surely this is not right?

They initially tried to say that it’s the Black out fabric showing through!
Which as the blackout fabric is also cream, this is impossible….
Now they just keep saying ‘the curtains were made to spec, and there is no mistake’?
The spec? Was the fabric, and lining which we chose, and on their stock pictures you cannot see any dark thread.

We have had curtains made before by a seamstress, in a similar style & colour, and there is NO visible stitching on the heading pleats at all?

The curtains were not cheap, and they look terrible.

Firstly, are there any seamstresses who can tell me if this is right?
And what, if anything can I do to get them remade with thread to match the curtains?

Thanks!

@EmilyBolton maybe I should contact the factory directly!

Some of their customer services are working from home. I called up and kept being interrupted by a child in the background, asked to repeat myslef endlessly.
Not what it used to be like.

I came to make a long post but @EmilyBolton has said pretty much all I had in mind.

They do look shoddy, and that isn't acceptable.

@TheHorrorOfIt this is not noted anywhere on the website, or during the order process.
We have even gone through a dummy order to double check!
There is no way we would have gone for blackout lining if this was the case!

Or perhaps ask them an obvious black tacking thread and poor quality finish is on trend and they should be advertising it as a feature rather than hiding their curtain contrasting thread under a bushel. Perhaps a price premium compared with the standard option of an adequate finish and not-using-contrasting-tacking-thread?

No. Your contract is with the shop, not the manufacturer (even if theay are al part of the same company). You could copy them into a longer email rejecting the curtains, using Emily's post, if you can find amy contact details for them.

Take them down & go to the nearest JL store to speak with customer service in person. Show & tell is more effective than negotiating with a call centre agent.

Black stitching in first picture is not of an acceptable standard EVEN IF it had been specified. The overall item is of a shoddy quality for an item made by professional curtain makers @EmilyBolton nails this point by point.

BTW John Lewis is not as it was.
It has been trading on the NKU ethos for many years.
We have been returning stuff to JL for over a decade as being poor quality.
Staff is stores vary between lovely & committed to the partnership or surly & unhelpful.

YANBU, they look awful.

I think you do need to take them into a store, so that you can show them exactly what you are talking about and how awful it looks. Hopefully they will be more understanding of your issue and give you a refund. (I wouldn't want them remade in case the same thing happened again).

I’ve recently hung Next MTM curtains and they wouldn’t have cost anywhere as much as your JL ones and you can’t see the colour of the stitching. The back of yours looks ok to me, the front is awful!

here are mine

Sorry for the sideways post!

This is the descriptions of their linings.
Nothing mentioned at all about stitching colours.

As I said, on the pleat top stitch it isn’t blackout liner showing- you’d just get small pin pricks where the needle enters and draws out at the start of each stitch….but the colour is showing all the way along the stitch..nope…that is dark thread. If they’re saying it’s the spec then they need to be asking why on earth you’d have a spec that has dark stitching in such stupid places- contrasting top stitch is used as decorative feature- thats butt ugly as it it doesn’t go whole way round, just small section…nope..if that’s design they need to sack designer.

I think if it is not a “mistake” it reads of cutting corners where they have a machinist doing all these types of pleats and not changing the thread to match the particular curtain fabric they’re working on - a one size fits all approach. You can sometimes get away with this by using shades of grey ….but at least they should be grouping light, mid and dark timed materials togther in batches and changing shades of thread. What they’re doing is save them money and time in terms of “changeovers”, over a full year that’d save a lot of money and time. But hells teeth it is just not acceptable or an adequate design feature.

I’ve used JL customer service a few times recently on the phone to sort a faulty order. It was JL staff, quick wait time and they sorted my issues quickly. Definitely phone them, it’s a British call handler and not outsourced. Sometimes a human is better in person than on email.

That is black thread. I would cut a stitch and pull it out to make it obvious that it’s thread. They need re-doing.

I would post a link to this thread on their Twitter Account.

I had an issue recently with a kettle that failed after a few months, JL only sorted the problem when I took to social media. Even then they gave me the impression that they were doing it to get me off their backs rather than fulfilling their legal obligations.

Wow, that's really poor! Can you take a clearer picture 1, focusing on the thread a bit more? Maybe they're denying they can see a problem because it's a bit blurry.

Unfortunately I think going to store is your best bet but afterwards ask them to contribute to your travel costs.

And I'm glad you posted too, as have several pairs of curtains to buy...

Interesting! I ordered mine in the shop and I remember clearly the woman saying this (she also queried my measurements as that particular window is an odd shape, but I thought that was also a good thing to double-check…)

So might you get a better response going into the curtain department and speaking to someone who knows what they are doing?!

I think taking them back to the store you ordered them from is you best option. That black thread on the pleats would annoy me intensely, the finish - eg that lining in the corner - is not as good as I would expect for a very expensive product supposedly made by a professional curtain maker.

These aren’t normal “pinch pleats” made form drawing up curtain header tape (pinch pleat tape). That doesn’t require any top stitching. God knows why they aren’t just using that method. These are folded pleats that have been stitched with this awful hosing top stitch construction. I assume the tape is then added after the folded pleats have been stitched. I’d certainly not buy curtains made like this- as much as anything you can never undo header and draw out pleats to wash the dust out that gatherers over time and iron really flat. These fixed pleats will be a bugger to iron if washed.

I've made pleat curtains. The black thread on the pleats is a literal mistake. No part of those curtains should have involved getting black thread out of the box. They should absolutely be returned for that. If they are tacking then they need to be carefully unpicked without damaging the fabric. I'm surprised they passed quality control and left the factory.

The pinpricks of black on the lining hem are the middle blackout layer slightly pulled by the needle, not the end of the world as they are on the back.
Likewise the visible stitching down the side of the lining looks like it was done by a hemstitching machine, it is not the end of the world - if they had been invisibly hand stitched your curtains would have been way more expensive. It's tidy and secure.

I would concentrate on the black stitching as that is an obvious mistake. The other things are just a feature of curtains made by machine. You completely need to get them replaced even if you have to take them into store and slap them down on the desk next to the sample.

No part of those curtains should have involved getting black thread out of the box. I agree. No idea what it's doing there.

The black sticky hung is a mistake and they need to sort it out Asap. I'm surprised they haven't already they're usually really good

That looks terrible. I’ve had every window in my house fitted with curtains / blinds from Next m2m all with black out lining and none of them have this stitching. I agree with the other posters - post it all over their social media and threaten to go to trading standards. They will have cost a fortune - I would be livid

Find the email of the chief executive of John Lewis and email them directly. Or phone head office and ask to speak to them. You won't get through but someone from their office will get on the case so that you don't have to get through to them with your complaint.