Velvet

Velvet is one of the most familiar of what are known as pile fabrics. It is produced by adding to the usual warp and weft threads of plain weaving an additional row of warp yarns which are woven into the ground of the cloth, and passed over wires on the surface. In the case of a loop pile (see CARPETS, fig. 3) the wires are simply drawn out, but for velvet or other cut pile a knife is first passed along a groove on the top of each wire to cut the pile before the wire is withdrawn. Real velvet is made entirely of silk, but a kind is made with a silk face on a cotton basis. For cotton fabrics made in the same way as velvet, including velveteen, see FUSTIAN; the name velveteen is however extended to fabrics in which silk and cotton are mixed throughout. Some of the richest and most artistic of the many splendid textiles woven on Italian looms in the 15th and 16th centuries were made, in part at least, of velvet. Similar stuffs were also made in Spain and Flanders. Many of these were for ecclesiastical vestments, altar cloths, and the like, as well as for hangings. Plain velvets were likewise woven. The effect of a raised pattern in velvet on a plain or figured silk ground is often very beautiful. Sometimes a diaper design was formed of a long upon a short pile, called velvet upon velvet, and this too has a fine effect. Choice examples of these old velvet fabrics are preserved in some industrial art collections. Velvet is believed to have been first made in China. Modern velvets are largely made at Lyons and Crefeld.