Slipcovers, the Old-School Sofa Refreshers, Are Finally Getting a Refresh
Gone are the saggy, neutral slip-jackets that swallowed up 1990s sofas. To cloak a couch stylishly in 2023, mix contrasting fabrics or add a kicky short skirt.
2 min
YOU MIGHT think of slipcovers as a saggy, dun-coloured signature of shabby chic, that ’90s decor style. In 2023, however, designers are rethinking the concept, with tailored box pleats, clever closures, contrasting fabrics and kicky short skirts distinguishing the best examples. “Slipcovers are experiencing something of a revival just now,” said Ben Pentreath, a London-based interior and architectural designer. Here’s a strategy guide:
The Appeal
Imagine you couldn’t change your clothes without professional help. Such is the sartorial fix in which upholstered furniture finds itself. One workaround: removable slipcovers tailored to fit over sofas or chairs, and give them a new attitude. “A slipcover can change the mood and feeling of the piece itself,” said Cris Briger, interior designer and co-owner of Casa Gusto, a home-design shop in West Palm Beach, Fla. She clad a pair of stuffy, traditional settees in a jaunty striped cover whose flirty skirt still shows a bit of wooden leg and whose tie closures make no attempt to be discreet. “The slipcovers gave them all this personality they could never have with upholstery,” she said.
Such covers both hide existing wear and protect furniture that typically sees far more action than, say, a guest bed. “There’s something so infinitely practical about being able to take a cover off and get it cleaned,” said Mr. Pentreath, “especially for any sofa which dogs sleep on, which is all sofas.”
The Tips
The best makeover candidates? Sturdy, high-quality seats that simply need a refresh. Ideal fabrics include washable cottons, canvas, linens and classic chintz. “I’ve always done slipcovers seasonally,” said Ms. Briger. “When you’re covering up a wool sofa, it’s awfully nice to do polished-cotton stripes for the summertime.”
To ensure his covers don’t shrink catastrophically upon cleaning, Mr. Pentreath prewashes at a high temperature the material that will be used. The process has a bonus flattering effect on “most chintz fabrics,” he said. “It gives them an instant sense of that elusive and much dreamed-of age.”
Slipcovers, impermanent by definition, also free you up to experiment, he notes. You can forgo the long-term practicality of safe performance fabrics and give your sofa a polka-dot-cotton spring or a tweedy, textured fall.
The Caveats
Beyond the cost of fabric, labor to make a sofa slipcover with cushions can cost $1,200, an armchair $500. And some upholstered pieces are ill-suited for a wardrobe change. “Tufted furniture looks bumpy with a cover, so I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Albert Nakash of Bettertex, a New York City textile workshop. “Slipcovers can work for most shapes, but pieces with straight lines make for a nicely tailored fit.
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
From making unpopular decisions to learning when to listen, leaders from five businesses reveal what nobody prepared them for — and how running a company has challenged their expectations.
Technology and semiconductor shares fell sharply as investors questioned the debt financing the AI infrastructure boom and confronted higher rates and Chinese competition.
Elon Musk is exploring a potential merger between Tesla and SpaceX, a deal that could reshape the future of AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles and space technology. With a combined valuation potentially reaching $3.5 trillion, the move could bring Musk’s vision of an interconnected technology ecosystem closer to reality, although a deal remains uncertain.
5 min
Elon Musk has engineered ties between Tesla TSLA 3.41%increase; up pointing triangle and SpaceX SPCX 7.79%increase; up pointing triangle that are hard to break, and now he wants to fuse them together permanently.
Musk has run both Tesla and SpaceX concurrently over the past two decades, using a schedule that dictated which days he spent focused on each business.
The companies have often shared resources and personnel, signaling their close ties. Last year, SpaceX looked into creating a spacesuit for Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, a person familiar with the matter said. Tesla last week showed off its new Roadster, a vehicle featuring SpaceX rocket thrusters that it hopes to soon bring to market.
And in recent months, Musk has repositioned both companies by expanding beyond their core operations toward a shared mission centered on artificial intelligence.
The world’s richest man on Tuesday signaled his interest in tying up SpaceX and Tesla, marking what would be the biggest corporate merger of all time. Because he serves as chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk said committees of independent directors at both companies are evaluating a possible deal, adding that a transaction might not come to fruition.
The committees will likely evaluate, with lawyers and bankers, how each company would fare in a potential deal and how a deal might best be structured. They then present their conclusions to their respective boards, who typically vote on whether to proceed.
“It’s an odd Kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation,” Musk told SpaceX investors on Tuesday in response to an analyst’s question about a potential deal.
For Musk, the merger supports his vision of a world full of autonomous cars, humanoid robots and weekly rocket launches, as well as the data centers and satellites required to keep the whole thing running.
Some investors and analysts said they expect a transaction would be structured as an all-stock deal, with SpaceX potentially paying a modest premium for Tesla shares.
SpaceX, which has a market value of about $2 trillion, said it is seeing sharp growth in revenue across its businesses, which include operating data centers, launching rockets and operating satellite networks such as the internet service Starlink. Tesla is valued at about $1.5 trillion and is expanding its operations beyond its automotive and energy business. Shares in both companies traded higher following the news Tuesday.
Musk’s substantial ownership stakes in both companies, along with voting control at SpaceX, has enabled him to set the deal in motion. Analysts and investors said the deal will probably face regulatory scrutiny internationally, though some see Musk’s close relationship with the Trump administration as an asset to getting approval.
Blurred lines
The companies haven’t said which directors are on the special committees evaluating a potential deal. Several SpaceX and Tesla board members have either personal or business ties to Musk. And like Musk, venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis sits on both boards.
In a filing this week, Tesla outlined millions of dollars in business agreements with SpaceX and its subsidiaries last year, including $143 million in car sales to SpaceX, $3.3 million in advertising that it bought on the social-media platform X and $430 million in revenue from the sale of Megapack batteries for SpaceX’s data centers.
The companies also split the cost of resources including the use of Musk’s SpaceX jet and the bill for his personal security, which he runs through a private company.
Employees at both companies routinely move between companies to work on special projects, and some executives have dual roles, including Charles Kuehmann, vice president of materials engineering at both SpaceX and Tesla, and Ashok Elluswamy, the vice president of AI software at Tesla who runs a joint venture with SpaceX called Digital Optimus.
Over the years, Musk has launched new startups within his empire, including brain-implant company Neuralink, underground-tunnel developer the Boring Company and xAI, the AI startup that merged with SpaceX in February.
It is that AI business that Musk thinks can serve a market worth tens of trillions of dollars, justifying the need for a merger.
The business case goes like this: Tesla is developing robotaxis and robots, which it calls “physical AI.” SpaceX is working on the back end of physical AI: the data-center capacity and internet connection required for those robotaxis and robots to operate continuously.
“I don’t see what the value of Tesla is if it’s not merged with SpaceX,” said investment adviser Ross Gerber, a former Tesla bull turned critic invested in both companies. “If they don’t merge, the brains of everything that runs Tesla is owned by another company.”
On top of it all, both companies face constraints on the supply chains they need to make this world a reality, particularly when it comes to chips. To address this, Musk earlier this year announced a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and Intel to design and manufacture chips in Texas. “The most epic chip-building exercise by far,” he has said.
Musk at the wheel
For Musk, a merger would also solve two problems: demands on his attention and his lack of control at Tesla.
Tesla for years was Musk’s only public company, a status that came with greater scrutiny. There, Musk reports to a public board, as well as individual investors who make up around 30% of Tesla’s voting power, according to FactSet.
The question of Musk’s attention became a particular focus for investors and the board in recent years after he acquired Twitter in 2022 and launched xAI in 2023, and again in 2025 as he spent time in Washington, D.C., running the Department of Government Efficiency in the early months of President Trump’s second term.
As Tesla’s car business suffered in 2025, Musk threatened to take his AI ambitions outside the company if he wasn’t granted 25% voting control. Last November, Tesla shareholders approved a new pay package for Musk, which created a path for him to vastly expand his stake.
As of Sept. 30, Musk owned a roughly 20% stake in Tesla, according to the company’s proxy filing.
The SpaceX IPO gave Musk a different path. When SpaceX went public in June, the deal’s structure enabled him to have more than 80% voting power at the company—so much that he can’t be fired and decisions can’t be made without his support.
If SpaceX acquires Tesla, he will likely stay in control.
Parts for iPhones to cost more owing to surging demand from AI companies.
Australian shares finished higher on Tuesday, September 22, as a technology rally and lower oil prices outweighed weakness in energy companies and continued anxiety about domestic interest rates. The S&P/ASX 200 closed 25.9 points, or 0.30 per cent, higher at 8,757.8. The All Ordinaries gained 0.36 per cent to 8,951.0, while the All Technology index …
Continue reading “ASX Wrap: Technology lifts the ASX as falling oil relieves inflation pressure”
