A Schplendid Guide to Italian Velvet: its history, science, craft and beauty
Posted posted on December 15, 2025
From ancient looms to Tuscan mills to your living room, here’s the full story of velvet – why it has bewitched emperors, merchants, couture houses and sofa-makers for centuries, and why we absolutely insist on the pure Italian kind for our Schplendid sofas…
“There are loads of velvets out there — polyester velvets, mixed velvets, clever stain-repellent velvets — but we just wanted a really good pure cotton velvet. Not treated, not sprayed, not messed around with. Just the best example of what velvet should be.” — Rohan Blacker, Founder of Schplendid
Velvet is one of those fabrics people think they know...Soft... plush… a little bit decadent. It’s the stuff you might stroke in a museum, wear to a winter wedding, or remember from your grandma’s sitting room. But the truth is that velvet is not so much a ‘type’ of fabric as a little world of techniques: a marriage of engineering and maths, with a healthy dose of unapologetic extravagance.
At the centre of that little world lies one critical fact: real velvet isn’t a fibre, but a weave. And nowhere do they weave it quite like the Italians…
We spent weeks in Tuscan mills, squinting at looms, comparing piles, running thumbs across samples like lunatics, asking mills exactly how many passes of the blade are required to shear a millimetre-perfect surface. The more we learned, the more it confirmed what Rohan has always said about fabrics: never bother with anything but the best.
This guide is our deep dive into the world’s most seductive fabric….
Vesper sofa in Lola's Yellow pure velvet
Velvet: the fabric that conquered Europe
The first velvets weren’t made in Europe but likely originated in China or the Middle East, where early weavers discovered that if you inserted a set of warp yarns that looped above the surface – and then cut those loops with a knife – you created something entirely new: a raised, shimmering “pile” unlike anything else.
16th Century Iranian Velvet Fragment with Design from Nizami’s “Khusrau and Shirin” (Met Museum)
Velvet drifted west along trade routes, reaching Italy during the Middle Ages. And from the 14th century onwards, and for a variety of reasons, Italy became the velvet capital of the world.
Cities like Lucca, Venice, Genoa and Florence built huge fortunes on the stuff. These weren’t mere workshops but tightly regulated guilds protecting recipes, dye secrets, loom designs and, occasionally, violence-inducing trade rivalries. Venetian velvets were famed for depth of colour. Genoese velvets gave the world the iconic cut and voided patterns still imitated today. Florentine velvets became the standard for ecclesiastical textiles across Europe.
Velvet was so prized that for centuries it was essentially unaffordable for almost everyone except kings and popes. Rich merchants draped velvet and artists painted it, while ordinary people simply gawped at it.
After Hans Holbein - portrait of Henry VIII. (1536) Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Public domain.
Today we think of velvet as “cosy”, but historically it was the textile equivalent of a Ferrari: unnecessary, beautiful, absurdly expensive. And yet through industrialisation, war, plagues, fashion cycles and the polyester revolution, velvet has endured. Why? Well once you’ve run your hand over real velvet, you understand exactly why.
Velvet and the senses: what makes it feel so good?
Velvet is unique because it engages both touch and vision...
1. The nap
Rub your hand one way it goes darker, rub the other way and it goes lighter. (This directional change is how painters depicted velvet long before photography.)
2. Thermal comfort
Unlike synthetics, cotton velvet breathes – it doesn’t trap heat or create that “sticky back” moment after an hour on the sofa.
3. Weight and fall
Velvet has the ability to ‘drape’, so it doesn’t hang stiffly like canvas or collapse like jersey.
4. Sound
This is an underrated feature of fabrics: velvet absorbs sound, so a velvet sofa can actually make your room a bit quieter.
Velvet has a beautiful 'nap'
Velvet in culture: from Renaissance kings to rock stars to living rooms
Frida Kahlo’s Self-portrait in a Velvet Dress (1926). Creative commons.
Over the past 800 years, velvet has often been a social marker. Who is allowed to shimmer? Who can afford depth of colour and extraordinary softness for no practical reason whatsoever? …
Renaissance power fabric
In Renaissance Italy, velvet was the fabric of power. Portraits by painters like Titian and Bellini show rulers and aristocrats in heavy, dark velvets that seem almost to glow from within: deep crimsons, wine-dark purples, gold-shot patterns you can almost feel with your eyes. To be painted in velvet was a statement – not just “I am rich” but “I expect to be remembered”.
As the merchant and banking classes rose, velvet started to appear in portraits of rich traders and their wives and daughters. Velvet sleeves and bodices were clear signals that this family had made it. You can see the shift from velvet being exclusively royal and ecclesiastical, to being the “badge” of a new, moneyed bourgeoisie
Titian – Portrait of a Lady (La Bella) (c. 1536). Public domain
Ecclesiastical velvet
The Church quickly adopted velvet as a fabric of ceremony. Altars were draped in it and priests’ vestments were made from it, while high feast days would be marked by the appearance of particularly sumptuous velvet hangings. In paintings and illuminated manuscripts you see bishops and cardinals in robes in weighty, beautifully embroidered velvet robes. Velvet stood for spiritual as well as earthly wealth: a symbol of heaven.
Theatre and opera
Ever wonder why theatre curtains are almost always red velvet? It’s not just tradition; velvet is very effective at absorbing light and sound. When the lights go down, the dense folds can swallow up reflections and echoes. And of course they also look majestic and - well, theatrical.
Fast-forward a few centuries and velvet reappears on a very different cast of characters. Velvet suit-wearers of the Swinging 60s Peacock Revolution included Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger, and then there were all those 1970s rock stars in velvet flares. What used to be the fabric of monarchs became that of slightly disreputable, decadent glamour…gloriously louche.
Today, velvet comes back into interiors every decade or so. It never quite goes away. Designers love it because it still does something almost no other fabric can: it makes a space feel both luxurious and properly lived-in. A cotton velvet sofa feels warm, enveloping and quietly glamorous – you might say it’s the domestic equivalent of drawing a theatre curtain and settling in for something good.
George Cecil Wilmshurst (b.1873) -Mrs Beatrice Channell, née Wyndham. Public domain.
Velvet as an engineering feat
To understand why good velvet is rare (and why bad velvet is common) we need to start with the basics.
A velvet loom weaves two layers of fabric at once. Between them runs a series of warp threads that form tiny loops. Mid-weave, a long knife slices these loops, separating the two cloths and creating an upright “pile” on the surface of each. A proper velvet must get three things right:
Pile density: how many upright fibres per square inch.
Pile height: too tall and it flops; too short and it loses lustre.
Yarn quality: cotton, silk or mohair behave totally differently.
This is why “cheap velvets” feel… incorrect. Most shortcut velvets are simply polyester knitted fabrics brushed to raise a faux-pile. They look fine in photos (which is why the sofa industry loves them), but to the hand they feel flat, plasticky and weirdly warm.
A good cotton velvet feels alive: breathable, substantial, with that subtle directional nap that gives the ombré shimmer. When you brush your hand across it, the light changes, giving the fabric a living or even slightly magical quality.
'The Loom for the making of Velvet' - 18th century print. Public domain.
How velvet is made (the short version)
Linen has its retting and scutching, and in turn velvet has its own rituals, which are less agricultural and more ‘architectural’....
Step 1: Warping
Thousands of cotton yarns are wound onto a warp beam in strict order.
Step 2: Weaving two cloths at once
This is the velvet magic: the loom creates two layers, connected by vertical warp threads that form loops.
Step 3: The cut
A long blade slices the loops, separating the two cloths. This forms the pile.
Step 4: Shearing
A precision process that creates a perfectly even surface. The difference between “good velvet” and “museum velvet” is often a fraction of a millimetre.
Step 5: Finishing
Italian mills scour, relax, steam and brush the velvet without chemical coatings. The cloth becomes supple and matte-shimmering (and lovely to touch).
What “pure Italian cotton velvet” means for Schplendid
We offer three fabrics. heavyweight linen, lightweight linen, and pure cotton velvet, each chosen for being 100% natural, untreated, and genuinely durable .
Our velvet:
Is woven in Tuscany, north of Florence
Is pure cotton pile + cotton backing
Is upholstery-grade (>30,000 Martindale rubs)
Uses no stain-repellent coatings
...but is still affordable. Why? Because our pricing model is unique and radical: we aim for a fixed gross margin per sofa, not a percentage markup that balloons on nicer fabrics, so we only pass on the exact cost of premium materials, not a multiplier.
This is why Schplendid velvet sofas cost what they do: the real cost of real velvet, without the traditional industry markup.
Why pure cotton?
We choose 100% cotton velvet woven in Tuscany for one very specific reason: Cotton pile plus cotton backing = the most natural, comfortable velvet you can sit on.
So: no polyester sheen and no synthetic heat buildup – and no nasty chemical sprays. What we’re after is a tightly woven, beautifully sheared surface with a velvety nap that softens with time rather than flattening or pilling.
The alternatives just don’t quite cut it:
Polyester velvet:It’s cheap with a consistent colour, but has a plasticky feel, traps heat, is shiny and can look “faux fancy”.
Mixed velvets (cotton/poly):Reasonably tough but loses the natural hand and ages less gracefully than the pure stuff.
Silk velvet:Exquisite but not suitable for sofas (and bankrupting)
Mohair velvet: Ok this is very nice stuff, possibly the aristocrat of velvets: deep pile, almost indestructible, unbelievably plush. Also extremely expensive. Rohan has a long-term dream of offering one (“I’d be very happy to,” he says), but only if we can price it sensibly.
Pure cotton velvet (ours): The sweet spot: natural, breathable, soft, warm in winter, cool in summer, and comfortable enough to live on.
The Italian way: why Tuscany still leads the world
Our velvet is woven in an Italian mill north of Florence, a region with centuries of textile know-how and where you can still find real skill and obsessive attention to how great velvet should feel.
1. The expertise goes back generations
Italian mills have been weaving velvets for centuries, and the people really know what they’re doing – they’re technicians who understand pile and warp behaviour and how to coax a flawless surface from cotton yarn.
2. Exceptional colourwork
Cotton pile takes colour beautifully, but achieving richness and consistency without over-processing is a genuine craft. Tuscany has been doing it longer and better than practically anywhere else.
3. They finish without plastic
Many brands start with decent cotton velvets and then spray them with an acrylic or polyurethane coating for stain repellency. This is useful for red wine spills but pretty disastrous for the hand-feel.
Our velvets are simply woven, dyed and finished, and absolutely not plastified. They feel luxurious immediately, and they age in the way natural fabrics should.
4. They understand pile
Pile height and density are key: too tall and it flops; too short and it goes stiff. Italian mills specialise in that Goldilocks ‘just right’ zone: dense enough to be durable, short enough to avoid crushing, with just enough height to give velvet its signature shimmer.
Living with velvet: how to look after it
Velvet is robust, but it has personality…
Crush marks– When pile moves, it changes colour. Pressure marks are normal, and they lift with brushing or light steaming.
Sunlight– Cotton velvet can fade under harsh, direct sunlight. Rotate cushions, use blinds when needed, and embrace the gentle patina.
Cleaning – Because we don’t spray coatings on it, velvet behaves like natural cotton:
Ageing – Over years, cotton velvet develops a softer nap, deeper tone and little visual “maps” of use — the good kind of ageing that linen enthusiasts call patina.
Why we don’t use stain-repellent coatings on Schplendid velvet
This deserves its own section because it’s one of the biggest differences between Schplendid and the mainstream sofa industry.
Many velvets on the market are heavily sprayed with acrylic coatings. This means that red wine floats on the surface like a duck on a pond.
However, it also means that the velvet no longer feels like velvet, it becomes hotter to sit on, the coating eventually cracks or dulls and you’re essentially sitting on plastic.
“A lot of these ‘clever’ velvets begin life as beautiful fabrics. Then they get sprayed with a strange repellent and suddenly the whole surface feels plasticky. We just don’t want that.” — Rohan
A velvet sofa changes a room: it softens it and warms it and makes the everyday rituals (reading, film-watching, napping) feel a little more more luxurious. That’s why velvet has lasted centuries and why we chose the pure Italian kind.
Trust us, when you sit on it, you really can feel the difference.... Schplendid!
A Schplendid Guide to Italian Velvet: its history, science, craft and beauty
From ancient looms to Tuscan mills to your living room, here’s the full story of velvet – why it has bewitched emperors, merchants, couture houses and sofa-makers for centuries, and why we absolutely insist on the pure Italian kind for our Schplendid sofas…
Velvet is one of those fabrics people think they know...Soft... plush… a little bit decadent. It’s the stuff you might stroke in a museum, wear to a winter wedding, or remember from your grandma’s sitting room. But the truth is that velvet is not so much a ‘type’ of fabric as a little world of techniques: a marriage of engineering and maths, with a healthy dose of unapologetic extravagance.
At the centre of that little world lies one critical fact: real velvet isn’t a fibre, but a weave. And nowhere do they weave it quite like the Italians…
We spent weeks in Tuscan mills, squinting at looms, comparing piles, running thumbs across samples like lunatics, asking mills exactly how many passes of the blade are required to shear a millimetre-perfect surface. The more we learned, the more it confirmed what Rohan has always said about fabrics: never bother with anything but the best.
This guide is our deep dive into the world’s most seductive fabric….
Velvet: the fabric that conquered Europe
The first velvets weren’t made in Europe but likely originated in China or the Middle East, where early weavers discovered that if you inserted a set of warp yarns that looped above the surface – and then cut those loops with a knife – you created something entirely new: a raised, shimmering “pile” unlike anything else.
Velvet drifted west along trade routes, reaching Italy during the Middle Ages. And from the 14th century onwards, and for a variety of reasons, Italy became the velvet capital of the world.
Cities like Lucca, Venice, Genoa and Florence built huge fortunes on the stuff. These weren’t mere workshops but tightly regulated guilds protecting recipes, dye secrets, loom designs and, occasionally, violence-inducing trade rivalries. Venetian velvets were famed for depth of colour. Genoese velvets gave the world the iconic cut and voided patterns still imitated today. Florentine velvets became the standard for ecclesiastical textiles across Europe.
Velvet was so prized that for centuries it was essentially unaffordable for almost everyone except kings and popes. Rich merchants draped velvet and artists painted it, while ordinary people simply gawped at it.
Today we think of velvet as “cosy”, but historically it was the textile equivalent of a Ferrari: unnecessary, beautiful, absurdly expensive. And yet through industrialisation, war, plagues, fashion cycles and the polyester revolution, velvet has endured. Why? Well once you’ve run your hand over real velvet, you understand exactly why.
Velvet and the senses: what makes it feel so good?
Velvet is unique because it engages both touch and vision...
1. The nap
Rub your hand one way it goes darker, rub the other way and it goes lighter. (This directional change is how painters depicted velvet long before photography.)
2. Thermal comfort
Unlike synthetics, cotton velvet breathes – it doesn’t trap heat or create that “sticky back” moment after an hour on the sofa.
3. Weight and fall
Velvet has the ability to ‘drape’, so it doesn’t hang stiffly like canvas or collapse like jersey.
4. Sound
This is an underrated feature of fabrics: velvet absorbs sound, so a velvet sofa can actually make your room a bit quieter.
Velvet in culture: from Renaissance kings to rock stars to living rooms
Over the past 800 years, velvet has often been a social marker. Who is allowed to shimmer? Who can afford depth of colour and extraordinary softness for no practical reason whatsoever? …
Renaissance power fabric
In Renaissance Italy, velvet was the fabric of power. Portraits by painters like Titian and Bellini show rulers and aristocrats in heavy, dark velvets that seem almost to glow from within: deep crimsons, wine-dark purples, gold-shot patterns you can almost feel with your eyes. To be painted in velvet was a statement – not just “I am rich” but “I expect to be remembered”.
As the merchant and banking classes rose, velvet started to appear in portraits of rich traders and their wives and daughters. Velvet sleeves and bodices were clear signals that this family had made it. You can see the shift from velvet being exclusively royal and ecclesiastical, to being the “badge” of a new, moneyed bourgeoisie
Ecclesiastical velvet
The Church quickly adopted velvet as a fabric of ceremony. Altars were draped in it and priests’ vestments were made from it, while high feast days would be marked by the appearance of particularly sumptuous velvet hangings. In paintings and illuminated manuscripts you see bishops and cardinals in robes in weighty, beautifully embroidered velvet robes. Velvet stood for spiritual as well as earthly wealth: a symbol of heaven.
Theatre and opera
Ever wonder why theatre curtains are almost always red velvet? It’s not just tradition; velvet is very effective at absorbing light and sound. When the lights go down, the dense folds can swallow up reflections and echoes. And of course they also look majestic and - well, theatrical.
Rock ’n’ roll velvet
Fast-forward a few centuries and velvet reappears on a very different cast of characters. Velvet suit-wearers of the Swinging 60s Peacock Revolution included Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger, and then there were all those 1970s rock stars in velvet flares. What used to be the fabric of monarchs became that of slightly disreputable, decadent glamour…gloriously louche.
Interior design
Today, velvet comes back into interiors every decade or so. It never quite goes away. Designers love it because it still does something almost no other fabric can: it makes a space feel both luxurious and properly lived-in. A cotton velvet sofa feels warm, enveloping and quietly glamorous – you might say it’s the domestic equivalent of drawing a theatre curtain and settling in for something good.
Velvet as an engineering feat
To understand why good velvet is rare (and why bad velvet is common) we need to start with the basics.
A velvet loom weaves two layers of fabric at once. Between them runs a series of warp threads that form tiny loops. Mid-weave, a long knife slices these loops, separating the two cloths and creating an upright “pile” on the surface of each. A proper velvet must get three things right:
Pile density: how many upright fibres per square inch.
Pile height: too tall and it flops; too short and it loses lustre.
Yarn quality: cotton, silk or mohair behave totally differently.
This is why “cheap velvets” feel… incorrect. Most shortcut velvets are simply polyester knitted fabrics brushed to raise a faux-pile. They look fine in photos (which is why the sofa industry loves them), but to the hand they feel flat, plasticky and weirdly warm.
A good cotton velvet feels alive: breathable, substantial, with that subtle directional nap that gives the ombré shimmer. When you brush your hand across it, the light changes, giving the fabric a living or even slightly magical quality.
How velvet is made (the short version)
Linen has its retting and scutching, and in turn velvet has its own rituals, which are less agricultural and more ‘architectural’....
Step 1: Warping
Thousands of cotton yarns are wound onto a warp beam in strict order.
Step 2: Weaving two cloths at once
This is the velvet magic: the loom creates two layers, connected by vertical warp threads that form loops.
Step 3: The cut
A long blade slices the loops, separating the two cloths. This forms the pile.
Step 4: Shearing
A precision process that creates a perfectly even surface. The difference between “good velvet” and “museum velvet” is often a fraction of a millimetre.
Step 5: Finishing
Italian mills scour, relax, steam and brush the velvet without chemical coatings. The cloth becomes supple and matte-shimmering (and lovely to touch).
What “pure Italian cotton velvet” means for Schplendid
We offer three fabrics. heavyweight linen, lightweight linen, and pure cotton velvet, each chosen for being 100% natural, untreated, and genuinely durable .
Our velvet:
Is woven in Tuscany, north of Florence
Is pure cotton pile + cotton backing
Is upholstery-grade (>30,000 Martindale rubs)
Uses no stain-repellent coatings
...but is still affordable. Why? Because our pricing model is unique and radical: we aim for a fixed gross margin per sofa, not a percentage markup that balloons on nicer fabrics, so we only pass on the exact cost of premium materials, not a multiplier.
This is why Schplendid velvet sofas cost what they do: the real cost of real velvet, without the traditional industry markup.
Why pure cotton?
We choose 100% cotton velvet woven in Tuscany for one very specific reason: Cotton pile plus cotton backing = the most natural, comfortable velvet you can sit on.
So: no polyester sheen and no synthetic heat buildup – and no nasty chemical sprays. What we’re after is a tightly woven, beautifully sheared surface with a velvety nap that softens with time rather than flattening or pilling.
The alternatives just don’t quite cut it:
Polyester velvet: It’s cheap with a consistent colour, but has a plasticky feel, traps heat, is shiny and can look “faux fancy”.
Mixed velvets (cotton/poly): Reasonably tough but loses the natural hand and ages less gracefully than the pure stuff.
Silk velvet: Exquisite but not suitable for sofas (and bankrupting)
Mohair velvet: Ok this is very nice stuff, possibly the aristocrat of velvets: deep pile, almost indestructible, unbelievably plush. Also extremely expensive. Rohan has a long-term dream of offering one (“I’d be very happy to,” he says), but only if we can price it sensibly.
Pure cotton velvet (ours): The sweet spot: natural, breathable, soft, warm in winter, cool in summer, and comfortable enough to live on.
The Italian way: why Tuscany still leads the world
Our velvet is woven in an Italian mill north of Florence, a region with centuries of textile know-how and where you can still find real skill and obsessive attention to how great velvet should feel.
1. The expertise goes back generations
Italian mills have been weaving velvets for centuries, and the people really know what they’re doing – they’re technicians who understand pile and warp behaviour and how to coax a flawless surface from cotton yarn.
2. Exceptional colourwork
Cotton pile takes colour beautifully, but achieving richness and consistency without over-processing is a genuine craft. Tuscany has been doing it longer and better than practically anywhere else.
3. They finish without plastic
Many brands start with decent cotton velvets and then spray them with an acrylic or polyurethane coating for stain repellency. This is useful for red wine spills but pretty disastrous for the hand-feel.
Our velvets are simply woven, dyed and finished, and absolutely not plastified. They feel luxurious immediately, and they age in the way natural fabrics should.
4. They understand pile
Pile height and density are key: too tall and it flops; too short and it goes stiff. Italian mills specialise in that Goldilocks ‘just right’ zone: dense enough to be durable, short enough to avoid crushing, with just enough height to give velvet its signature shimmer.
Living with velvet: how to look after it
Velvet is robust, but it has personality…
Crush marks – When pile moves, it changes colour. Pressure marks are normal, and they lift with brushing or light steaming.
Sunlight – Cotton velvet can fade under harsh, direct sunlight. Rotate cushions, use blinds when needed, and embrace the gentle patina.
Cleaning – Because we don’t spray coatings on it, velvet behaves like natural cotton:
Vacuum gently with a soft brush
Dab spills (never scrub)
A Guardsman-style insurance policy handles catastrophic red-wine moments if you want extra peace of mind
Ageing – Over years, cotton velvet develops a softer nap, deeper tone and little visual “maps” of use — the good kind of ageing that linen enthusiasts call patina.
See more in our Care Guides, including How to Keep Your Sofa Looking Schplendid - A Guide to Regular Sofa Care
Why we don’t use stain-repellent coatings on Schplendid velvet
This deserves its own section because it’s one of the biggest differences between Schplendid and the mainstream sofa industry.
Many velvets on the market are heavily sprayed with acrylic coatings. This means that red wine floats on the surface like a duck on a pond.
However, it also means that the velvet no longer feels like velvet, it becomes hotter to sit on, the coating eventually cracks or dulls and you’re essentially sitting on plastic.
A velvet sofa changes a room: it softens it and warms it and makes the everyday rituals (reading, film-watching, napping) feel a little more more luxurious. That’s why velvet has lasted centuries and why we chose the pure Italian kind.
Trust us, when you sit on it, you really can feel the difference.... Schplendid!
See also:
The perfect touch: Why we only use pure Italian linen and velvet fabrics for Schplendid sofas
A Schplendid Guide to Italian Linen: its history, science, craft and delights
A Schplendid Guide to Down: its history, science, uses and delights