I Can’t Believe Fabric Tub Skirts Are a Thing, but I Love Them!

Not every home decor moment needs to be practical. There’s a time and place for whimsy in my book — little accents that are there just to make you smile rather than to serve any function. What good is design if it doesn’t occasionally value form over function, right? That’s the design philosophy I’m taking with me into this latest iteration of a favorite trend that’s reemerged in the past few years: fabric skirts.

This retro style nod is popping up everywhere in the home again. There are skirted pedestal sinks that hark back to old-school bathrooms. (Your grandmother may have used one to cleverly disguise items because she didn’t have a cupboard for closed storage.) Skirted furniture adds a soft, playful touch amidst more serious tailored upholstery anywhere you put it. And skirted “cabinets” are not only fun and frivolous — they actually serve a more frugal purpose (a piece of fabric and a tension rod will always be the more cost-effective choice compared to cabinet doors).

The latest iteration of this home design trend, however, is something that’s all for looks. In a recent issue of House & Garden magazine (the British style bible, for the uninitiated), the home of artist Lydia Millward debuts something I hadn’t seen before: a skirted tub. 

This deep-teal clawfoot tub, sitting in the most impossibly charming cottage bathroom you can see from the Instagram post above, three clicks in, has a flouncy little floral stripe skirt around it. The skirt isn’t dramatic — instead, it’s just a whisper of a frilly detail — and the commenters on the post are shockingly all for it.

A fabric tub skirt’s not at all practical (can you imagine how wet it might get any time someone splashed around in the bath?). But it adds the cutest little touch of color, pattern, and softness to an otherwise pretty but fairly plain bathroom. And it creates a visual eye path in this particular space, thanks to the fact that it shares its fabric with the sconce’s lampshade.

Now, before you decide this is so ridiculously impractical that it would never work, here me out: A fabric tub skirt could work in a bathroom where you have a tub that doesn’t get much use. This might be more common than you think. Let’s say your main place to bathe is another bathroom with a shower. Or, if you’re really fortunate in the bathroom department, you might have both a shower and a tub in the same bathroom. You may always have grand intentions of taking luxurious baths with a glass of wine and a good book, but how often does it actually happen?

If you’re anything like me, never. A bath always sounds like a better idea in theory than actual practice, and my tub goes unused. Sometimes I feel like it’s silly to even have a bathroom with a tub. 

And, in that case, why not make it even sillier with a fabric tub skirt? At least then, it’s getting a cute little design treatment that you and any house guests are sure to notice. Even better? Make the skirt removable with Velcro, and you don’t have to worry about wetting it at all!