How would you animate this rising curtain?

I wanted a more advanced curtain animation for my current project and I really love the look of this curtain as it rises.



The curtain should start flush with the ground and then rise, forming this shape.

How would you approach this? Are there scripts that may help pull up the horizontal cords to form that curved shape? I'm wondering if there was a rig I could build that would help emulate this style or if I'm overthinking it. The Puppet Tool seems like it'd work great with the bottom but to get a repeated effect like that I'm afraid it'd be a mess.

Thankfully, the style I'm going for doesn't have to be photo realistic. Any suggestions welcomed and appreciated!

"I'm your density. I mean, your destiny." – George McFly

Great suggestions! I totally forgot about Mesh Warp but I'm going to try that as well as Displacement Map and see what yields the best results. Really appreciate it.

"I'm your density. I mean, your destiny." – George McFly