Velvet is fashionable!

When we talk about velvet, we might imagine stiffened clothes, "old-fashioned" items, period drapes, theater curtains, but also pants and shorts worn by scouts at the beginning of the last century... but think again... today velvet is trendy!

For several years now, velvet has been making a comeback in fashion. Because of its softness, texture, and also the new printed patterns you can find, velvet brings originality to our clothing pieces as well as accessories!

Moreover, when temperatures drop, velvet is a very good choice for sewing projects. It is soft, beautiful, comfortable, and comes in a wide range of colors... In short, it’s an excellent textile choice when living in our dear Belgium!

I love using it especially for my dresses, jumpsuits/overalls, and winter skirts worn with tights and boots. It also has a special place for making jackets, pants, overalls, and shorts for both children and adults.

So let's talk about this wonderful material!

My Cléo dress from Fibremood in red corduroy velvet from the shop

My Caroline skirt from Atelier des premières in fuchsia corduroy velvet

Trendy today but also trendy yesterday... let's talk a little about the history of velvet!

The term "velvet" comes from the Latin vilosus (hairy) because of the pile that velvet has, and this has been the case since its creation. Velvet has the particularity of having one side covered with pile and the other side smooth.

The origin of velvet is India, in the Kashmir region around the Middle Ages. At that time, it was called "Swan down." Following the Silk Road, velvet arrived in Italy, first passing through Persia, which was then a huge commercial and trading hub. It was Italian merchants who spread it across Europe around the 14th century and developed velvet weaving centers: Genoa, Venice, Milan, and Florence. At that time, silk was woven, making velvet extremely expensive due to the quality of its fibers and the weaving time required. Velvet was therefore reserved for the wealthiest! In the 16th century, France also began weaving velvet, notably in Tours and especially in Lyon.

It was not until the 19th century, with the invention in 1801 by Lyonnais Joseph Marie Jacquard of the Jacquard loom, which allows new weaving combinations and revolutionizes the textile industry, that corduroy became widely accessible.

Copy of a 16th-century corduroy dress

Jacquard loom from industry and Lyonnais expertise

What is corduroy today?

Today, under the term corduroy, we group together a variety of fabrics that share the common feature of being woven in a complex weave called "corduroy". This weave is characterized by combining, in addition to the classic warp and weft threads, one or more extra threads called "pile threads". These threads are embedded in the weft and form loops on the fabric surface (on one side only). These loops may be uncut (like terry cloth) or cut (as in the case of cut pile corduroy). Due to the presence of loops on only one side of the fabric, as you can imagine, the two sides of the corduroy are very different and will influence how you work with it. The wrong side will often have a matte and smooth surface, while the right side will have a surface made of small, short, upright, and tightly packed fibers all oriented in one direction. And yes, just like with a cat, the nap of the corduroy has a direction and should be stroked in the direction of the nap...

If in the past, only silk was used to create corduroy, today the industry offers cotton, silk, wool, but also polyester corduroys at very variable prices. So be attentive to the composition of the corduroy you buy. In our shop and in line with our commitment to work as much as possible with natural materials, we have chosen 100% cotton fine-wale corduroys and 97% cotton with 3% elastane ribbed corduroys.