Mermet Light-Filtering Fabrics
16 colourways in 3 designs: daytime privacy, soft daylight, and a blackout twin in the same colours.
Privacy by day, glow instead of glare
A light-filtering fabric is dense enough that nothing can be seen through it from either side by day, and open enough that the room stays bright and the cloth glows with the light behind it. Mermet weaves its Daylight fabrics at under 1% openness and publishes visible transmission of 10% to 40% across them, which is the difference between a screen and a daylight fabric: a lot of light, no view. There are 16 colourways in 3 designs, and each one has a blackout partner in the same colour names.
Sofia Daylight is 100% polyester in six food-named colours from Oat to Pumpernickel, 118 inches wide, with the highest acoustic rating in the Mermet range at NRC 0.45. Elba Daylight is a textured jacquard, also 118 inches, in five stone names from Pumice to Obsidian, matched to Elba Twilight. Vizela is the fiberglass one: 100% textured fiberglass with an EVA coating, 94.5 inches wide, five colours, NRC 0.35, and the only Daylight weave here that carries NFPA 701 TM#1, California Title 19 and CAN/ULC-S109. It pairs with the Flocké blackout.
3 Mermet light-filtering designs, 16 colourways
Reading a Daylight fabric
Under 1% openness
Not a view fabric. Nothing readable comes through the weave by day, but 10% to 40% of the visible light does, so the room reads as bright rather than shaded. This is the fabric for a bedroom, a bath, a street-facing living room or a study, and for glass where the view is a neighbour's wall.
Sofia Daylight
100% polyester, 118 inches, six colours: Oat, Barley, Poppyseed, Rye, Buckwheat and Pumpernickel. Visible transmission runs 40% in Oat down to 10% in Pumpernickel, so the same card covers a bright room and a quiet one. ASTM E84 Class A and California Technical Bulletin 117; NRC 0.45.
Elba Daylight
A textured jacquard in 100% polyester, 118 inches, five colours: Pumice, Limestone, Slate, Basalt and Obsidian. Visible transmission runs 36% to 10%. The Hemispheres in Hallandale Beach runs Elba Daylight in Limestone in the living areas with Elba Twilight in the bedroom.
Vizela
100% textured fiberglass with an EVA coating, 94.5 inches, five colours: Blanc, Sahel, Mississippi, Chartreux and Loutre. Visible transmission 37% to 10%, NRC 0.35, and the fire listings of a fiberglass screen rather than a polyester textile, which is what puts it into commercial work.
Day privacy, night privacy and the pair
By day a Daylight fabric is fully private from outside. At night, with the lights on inside, a pale fabric silhouettes: the darker colours on each card (Pumpernickel, Obsidian, Loutre) largely solve it, and the blackout twin solves it completely. That is why Mermet builds these as pairs. Sofia Daylight matches Sofia Twilight, Elba Daylight matches Elba Twilight and Vizela matches Flocké, colour name for colour name, so one bedroom can run the Daylight weave on a dual roller in front of the Twilight and never change colour.
In South Florida the Daylight weaves are the second shade rather than the first. On the water we put a solar screen at the glass because the view is the reason the room exists; a Daylight fabric goes on the street side, the neighbour side, the bathroom and the guest room, or in front of a blackout in a primary suite that wants soft light in the morning without opening the shades. The three cards are all neutral, so they sit under any of the screen colours on our solar screen page.
Light-filtering on our installations
At The Hemispheres in Hallandale Beach the living areas run Elba Daylight in Limestone on Somfy Sonesse 30 Zigbee rollers, with Elba Twilight in the same Limestone in the bedroom, caulked at every edge in about two and a half inches of depth. That is the pattern we repeat from Fort Lauderdale to Sunny Isles: the Daylight weave where the light matters more than the view, its Twilight twin where the room has to go dark, one colour through the apartment.
Light-filtering: frequently asked
What is the difference between light-filtering and a solar screen?
A solar screen is see-through, chosen for the view and for glare; a light-filtering fabric is not see-through, chosen for privacy and soft light. Mermet weaves the Daylight fabrics at under 1% openness with 10% to 40% visible transmission, so the room is bright and private at the same time. Many homes use both: screen on the water side, Daylight on the street side.
Is a light-filtering shade private at night?
By day, fully. At night a lit room shows shapes through a pale fabric. Choose the dark end of the card (Pumpernickel, Obsidian, Loutre) or add the blackout twin where that matters, which is why each of these three fabrics has one in the same colours.
Which one for a commercial project?
Vizela. It carries NFPA 701 TM#1, California Title 19 and CAN/ULC-S109, where Sofia Daylight and Elba Daylight are listed to ASTM E84 (Class A) and California Technical Bulletin 117. All three carry GREENGUARD Gold and RoHS lead free. Vizela is 94.5 inches wide, so wide openings take two shades on one headrail.
Do these fabrics help with noise?
A little, and Mermet publishes the numbers: Sofia Daylight is NRC 0.45 and Vizela NRC 0.35, the two highest values in the range outside the 1% E Screen weaves. That is a softening of hard-surface echo in a room with a lot of glass and stone, not acoustic insulation from outside.
Mermet light-filtering in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Boca Raton & Palm Beach
Every fabric on this page is sourced directly from Mermet, cut and finished in our Fort Lauderdale workroom on Lutron, Somfy, Crestron or manual hardware, and installed by our own team from Miami to Palm Beach. Our showrooms in Fort Lauderdale (4539 Powerline Rd, by appointment) and Miami Beach (500 South Pointe Dr #150) have motorized shades running so you can judge the fabrics in motion.
Choose the fabric in your own light
Book a complimentary in-home consultation. Shortlist the designs you like and we bring the Mermet sample books, demo motors, and honest answers about openness, colour and exposure.