Velvet Crush

Once the preserve of the wealthy, velvet finally touched all levels of society, thanks to advances in its production process

- Celia Rufey

Velvet tells a story as complex and captivating as its plush surface. The genesis of this covetable weave danced from Egypt, around 2000BC, to China, via Baghdad along the way. Small quantities of silk velvet came to Europe before the 12th century, and in significant quantities during the 13th century. This coincided with a time when Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire brought stability through Central Asia, allowing these textiles to travel down the Silk Road to Europe. The city of Lucca was one of the first to produce silk velvet in Italy, after weavers from Palermo arrived there once the French invasion of Sicily in 1266 had displaced Islamic rule. But it was Venice, and Genoa in particular – whose ports gave access to markets to the East and across Europe – that by the following century were recognised for the quality of their velvets, adapting their weaving traditions and patterns for treadle and draw looms.

The status of silk velvet in these leading Italian city states touched all levels of society, where every aspect of its production was controlled. The wealthy wore it and furnished with it, the dyers who sourced the finest dyes to colour the silk yarn, and the weavers who mastered the technique of producing fabric with pile, were party to secrets not to be shared. One contemporary writer reckoned these secrets were safe anyway, as velvet’s production meant ‘no-one is capable of doing alone the many tasks that it involves’.