Amo Blinds is celebrating after winning the prestigious award for Best Blinds Collection 2011 by the Home Decoration Retailers Association (HDRA). The HDRA holds its annual awards to recognise excellence in the home décor industry and Amo Blinds’ Roller and Vertical collections triumphed after impressing judges with their bold and innovative approach.

Winning the prize is all the more pleasing for Amo Blinds as the HDRA doesn’t invite award submissions and instead goes out into the marketplace to search for the very best collections in the industry.

Michael Weedon from HDRA said: “There is a purity about our awards because they are voted for by our members and Amo’s approach to consulting its customers before developing the collection really has, quite clearly, shone through.”

The awards were presented at Birmingham’s NEC and the creative designer responsible for putting the collections together,

Helen Kilvington, picked up the gong on behalf of the team at Amo. She was delighted that the company’s collections had received such critical acclaim.

“It is such an honour to have picked up the award and this is a great accolade for everyone at Amo Blinds,” she said.

“We had no idea that the HDRA had even seen our collection let alone put it up for consideration for the Best Blinds Collection 2011 award.

“Amo Blinds set out to create collections which would help independent retailers to sell more blinds by inspiring consumers and showcasing how our collections could transform any window.

“The new collections have been very well received by our independent retail trade customers and this is in itself sufficient reward in what is a very competitive market. But the award really is the icing on the cake for Amo Blinds.”

The HDRA presented five other awards including ones for wallpaper, fabrics and accessories such as poles and trimmings.
When Amo Blinds launched its collections at the end of 2010 it said it had gone back to the drawing board in a bid to produce stunning collections.

Helen and the team ensured that the collections were at the cutting edge of home interiors trends and also remained as comprehensive as possible to give consumers lots of inspiring options. It also completely redesigned its collection books to make them easier for its trade customers to use when presenting to homeowners.

The Roller collection contains 347 fabrics and the Verticals has 278. In both books all prints, jacquards and textured fabrics are grouped together by colour palettes. Blackouts and plain fabrics are in separate mini collection books which fit neatly into compartments within the main collection books.

Amo Blinds’ general manager Richard Greaves added: “When we launched the collections we were very pleased because we felt we had a collection that raised the bar in our industry.

“Helen Kilvington should receive a lot of the plaudits for the award because it was her vision and her blood, sweat and tears which helped to deliver two groundbreaking books for our business.”

• The Roller and Vertical books can be ordered now by calling Amo Sales and Service on 01429 851500.