Both fourth generation Arizonans, John and Athena Hatch are descended from longtime pioneer families sent here from Utah to settle Arizona.
Athena learned to sew when she was really young, took a lot of sewing classes in high school and learned the business of making the draperies working in a drapery work room after graduation. She left that job a few years when she decided to be a stay-at-home mom. She began doing drapes on the side and that ended up growing into a business that has prospered for 36 years.
Their bread and butter is primarily residential; people that just walk in the door and say “I’m looking for something on my windows what can you show me?”
They do fancier jobs and real high-tech stuff, like taking an opportunity to do a high-rise in Beverly Hills; commercial restaurants; even some Hampton Inn hotel projects; they’ve done houses in Utah and in Washington State but, most of their work is in Gilbert.
John and Athena know very well that the window coverings industry is changing very quickly. When Athena’s Window Fashions first started in 1983, colors were projected to last for five to six years. Really trendy colors colors change rapidly. In the past there were more shops that had their own work rooms but now having your own work room where you actually make the drapes, is unique. Most places send the work out.
Their decades of experience mean Athena can walk into a house and know when the rooms were done because that’s when color was really hot. Sometimes, they even know who did it by its unique look. Knowing that if people kept a color they bought for this long it means they really like that color, and can find something in a similar palette and freshen it up, and change styles a little to update the window coverings.
Some people like to feel the fabric of the drapes. They’re tactile. They like to feel certain types of fabric and they’ll touch the fabric, and if they walk in the shop and they look
through books and they’re touching each one, John and Athena know that’s the kind of person they are. Yet some people will walk in and say they like the look of blue and they’re always talking about how things look and then you that’s a person that learns through their eyes.
Athena can sit down with a client in a few minutes and they’ll say well I kind of miss thinking this and that and she’ll sketch out for them what they’re thinking in their heads because she’s been doing it so long she can catch all the clues and she knows what
they want might like.
This is why Athena’s does things the way they do them. “We enjoy people coming into the showroom as well but I like to go and take the fabrics into the home and lay it out and hold it up at the windows let them see it in the home. The final decision needs to be in the home with the fabric held up with their lighting, their furniture and me measuring the window.”
Athena’s Window Fashions sells several major brands of blinds and shutters. “Hunter Douglas is one of our big suppliers and they have promotions going in each quarter.
Currently we have a promotion going with Hunter Douglas that gives you a hundred
dollar rebate per blinds or something of that nature that comes back from Hunter Douglas.”
On their other products they generally give a 20% discount on the fabrics.
Athena’s Window Fashions is at 690 E. Warner Road, Suite 155, in Gilbert
Arizona 85296. Hours are 9:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday. Saturday and evenings by appointment.
Reach them by phone at 480 814 0001, online at athenaswindows.com, and on Facebook, @Athena’s Window Fashions.
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