Where does Velvet come from?

Velvet comes from Italy, where it dates to the Middle Ages.

Plate No. 052fabric

The render is a stylized impression of pile sheen.

First documented: Middle Ages
Origin: Eastern Mediterranean and Italy, Italy
Fiber: silk, cotton, polyester
Weave: warp pile, cut
Family: pile

Plate No. 052 · fabric

Velvet

Velvet is a pile cloth: an extra warp is woven over fine rods or against a second cloth, then cut, so the surface is a dense field of upright silk or cotton tufts with no visible weave at all. The cut pile absorbs and returns light unevenly, which is why velvet appears to change shade as it moves and why no flat cloth ever looks as deep. Medieval Italy, above all Genoa, Florence, and Venice, built fortunes on silk velvet for courts and cardinals, and the cloth has signified luxury ever since. The render is a stylized impression of pile sheen; velvet has no pattern geometry to draw.

Named for

From the Latin villus, a tuft of hair: velvet is a surface made entirely of tufts.

In the record

1400sThe velvet workshops of Genoa, Florence, and Venice made Italian silk velvet the standard of European luxury.

Common questions

What is Velvet made of?: Velvet is a pile cloth: an extra warp is woven over fine rods or against a second cloth, then cut, so the surface is a dense field of upright silk or cotton tufts with no visible weave at all.
Where does Velvet come from?: Velvet comes from Italy, where it dates to the Middle Ages.
What is Velvet named after?: From the Latin villus, a tuft of hair: velvet is a surface made entirely of tufts.