Arrives flat and then drops around the bulb as you hang it. Unfortunately it's not at all balanced and pulls the light bulb away from vertical quite significantly. It also doesn't drop as far down as is shown in the picture. It takes a lot of stretching and pulling to get it like you see here. There are also small surface defects where the spirals join the central structure, but these are not noticable once the fixture is up. However, once you get past the issues, this looks good and doesn't shade too much light from the bulb.