Black Velvet, If You Please

No animal attracts more theoretical methods for its destruction than the secretive and softly upholstered mole.

- Ian Morton

SURELY, it’s one of Nature’s ironies that a creature that burrows in dirt and rarely sees the light of day should live in a skin that’s nothing less than voluptuous, with fur that has no nap direction because it needs to move both forwards and backwards in its tunnel.

A century and more ago, its exotic appeal became suddenly and widely recognised. Moleskin waistcoats were a tradition among working countrymen, but, when Queen Alexandra ordered a moleskin wrap in 1901, she launched a fashion that turned an agricultural pest into a welcome source of rural revenue. As Edwardian ladies demanded to be swathed in natural black velvet, the fashion industry took a million skins a year.

In the midst of it all, in 1908, Kenneth Grahame published The Wind in the Willows, opening with the amiable, shortsighted Mole venturing into daylight to go boating and socialising. President Roosevelt himself wrote to Grahame that he had ‘come to accept the characters as old friends’, but sentiment failed to dent fashion, with four million skins a year being exported to the USA.

The fashion persisted. In 1921, a threelayer wrap made from 600 skins could be purchased from Debenham & Freebody for 98 guineas—about £6,000 now.

Today, the smooth softness of the animal’s coat is acknowledged by tightly woven cotton moleskin cloth, widely popular for country kit. It’s also attached to lavalier microphones worn by audio performers and reporting staff to reduce the rustle of clothing and wrapped around rifle stocks by military snipers to absorb sweat and reduce slipping.

The mole is a creature remarkable in its own right. Pound for pound, it’s one of the strongest mammals on the planet. With an extra thumb on each forepaw, it can tunnel up to 18ft an hour and 300ft in a day in bursts of four hours, followed by three hours of rest.