Gentle Arch Full Length Mirror 160 x 60cm

It is for the person who wants an arch without a semicircle. The curve on the Gentle Arch rises only a few centimetres at the centre, so the mirror reads as a rectangle with its shoulders rounded: softer than a plain frame, quieter than the full Arched 160 x 60cm, and the one that sits comfortably under a picture rail, a sloping ceiling or a run of coving that a semicircle would fight. At 160 x 60cm it is the bedroom size, and a 160 x 60 mirror is the one most British bedrooms end up with. Sixty centimetres frames one person with an outfit held up beside them, and 160cm of glass is enough for a household up to about 185cm when hung, or any height when leant.

Buy something else if any of these is you. You are over 185cm and want it hung flat: the Gentle Arch 180 x 90cm adds 20cm of height and 30 of width for £40 more. You want two people in the mirror at once: that is the 180 x 105cm. The room has a wall of straight lines and nothing else curved: the full Arched at the same size and price gives you more shape for the money. The gap beside the wardrobe is under 60cm: nothing here fits, and the long mirror page says what to buy instead. And if the mirror is going in a hallway, hang it; a 15kg leaner where people carry bags is a knock waiting to happen.

The frame measures 160cm tall by 60cm wide at its outer edge, with a hand-finished tolerance of about a centimetre. The glass is 4mm float with a silver back and a reinforced safety backing, and at 2.5kg per square metre per millimetre the 0.96 square metre sheet weighs 9.6kg of the mirror's 15.3kg; the welded steel frame and the backing are the rest, which is what keeps a sheet this tall flat. The frame is slim, in the 15 to 20mm face width the maker uses across the range, so the glass is nearly the whole width.

What that shows depends on how it stands. Hung with the bottom edge 20cm up, a 160cm mirror has the top of its glass at 180cm, which by the half-height rule covers anyone up to about 185cm from head to shoes and gives a 175cm person a hand of air above the head. Leant at seven degrees the face points slightly upward, so it shows more head and ceiling and a little less floor; anyone sees themselves head to toe from a pace back. The average British man is 175.0cm and the average woman 161.3cm, which is why this is the size we would start most households at.

Same frame, same price, different job. A black Gentle Arch mirror reads as a window frame: crisp on white, off-white and pale grey, excellent on sage, and the finish that hides fingerprints and matches the black handles and taps most homes already have. It goes flat on a mid grey and vanishes on navy. A gold Gentle Arch mirror is a champagne-brass rather than a bright brass; it glows on sage, navy and cream, lifts a mid grey, and drifts towards warm silver on a pure white wall, which is either the quiet look you wanted or the reason to choose black there. Match it to the room's other metals: champagne handles want the gold, chrome and black want the black.

Both finishes are powder coat, pigment baked into a hard skin over the steel, so neither tarnishes and both wipe clean with a dry or barely damp cloth. Matt black shows dust a little more and a scratch through either shows as a bright steel line, which a touch-up pen hides from two paces. The colour pages go deeper: black full length mirrors and gold full length mirrors, and the eight arches in each colour sit on the black arch and gold arch pages.

Both work from the same box. To lean it, stand it on felt or rubber pads with the base 15 to 20cm out from the wall for a lean of five to eight degrees, then fit an anti-tip strap or a screw eye and cable at the top: one screw, a few pounds from any DIY shop, four minutes. The strap is not in the carton and is not rated to carry the weight; it stops the mirror being pulled forward, which is the only direction that matters with a child or a dog about. The securing guide covers the strap, the cable and the L-bracket for a toddler's room.

To hang it, use the two hanging points already fitted to the back and buy the wall side to suit your wall, because that is why plugs and screws are not in the box. Measure between the hanging points and how far they sit below the top of the curve, because the arch's hardware is lower than its top edge, and mark the wall with a level so the top of the glass ends up level with or above the tallest user's head. The hanging guide has every wall type with the tools named.

One carton, the mirror inside it with the hanging hardware already on the back and a reinforced safety backing behind the glass. Not inside: wall plugs, screws or a strap, which have to match your wall. Open it the day it arrives, because the damage window is 24 hours: lay it face up on the flattened carton, look along the glass edge to edge in good light, run a hand around the frame corners, and check the back. If anything is cracked, chipped or marked, photograph the damage, the carton and the label and email us; a replacement is dispatched free and the damaged mirror stays with you for disposal. If the carton is visibly crushed at the door, refuse it and tell us.

Then the ten-second flatness test before it goes on the wall: stand to one side and look at the reflection of a door frame. A straight line should stay straight the whole way up. In 4mm glass in a welded frame it will; if it does not, that is a damage claim, not a feature.

The Gentle Arch comes in five sizes, and the 160 x 60cm is the middle of the family in every sense. The 150 x 60cm is the same width, 10cm shorter, the same 15.3kg and £50 less; hung at 20cm it tops out at 170cm, so it suits a household under about 175cm and a smaller room. The 180 x 90cm nearly doubles the glass area, weighs 29.8kg, comes on a two-person delivery and wants studs or masonry rather than cavity anchors; it is the hallway and dressing-room size. The 180 x 105cm and 200 x 120cm are bought for the room rather than the person.

Against the other 160 x 60cm designs: the Arched is the same size and price with a full semicircle and 14.7kg; the Rectangular has no curve at all, hangs portrait or landscape, and is £10 less. All three share the glass, the frame construction and the mounting, so the choice is purely the line at the top.

Dispatched within one working day from UK stock on a tracked courier used to glass, arriving in two to seven working days, free to mainland UK addresses; offshore postcodes are quoted by email before you order. The delivery page has the rest. Transit damage is replaced free from a photo sent within 24 hours, and you never post glass back. Change of mind is 14 days from delivery, unused and in its packaging, at your carriage cost, which is the honest reason to measure the wall before you click. The returns page sets both out, and the full range is on the full length mirrors page.