Modern Velvet

[gladhands]

This may be a silly questions, but is modern velvet actually made of...velvet? I'm sure that there's a lot of synthetic "velvet" out there, but would a pair of Albert slippers from say, Brooks Brothers be made with the stuff that comes from antlers?

 

[Master Squirrel]

Um... I don't think antler velvet is a viable fabric. You might be thinking of the silk velvets of years past.

 

[gladhands]

I'm not sure whether I should pretend I was trolling or confess to crippling stupidity.

 

[Veremund]

Velvet is a weave, not a material. It can be made from silk, cotton, or polyester.

 

[Naive Jr.]

And there are conflicting views on silk velvet. If you look at Saavy Row, there were at least two second-hand bespoke silk velvet jackets advertised, yet Huntsman, when asked, has no silk velvet as cloth for bespoke jackets, and although Oliver Brown offers silk velvet jackets on special order, their saleswoman on the phone asserts it is unsuitable for a jacket!

 

[Naive Jr.]

Another variant according to sources are mixtures of silk and polyester. So if velvet is the cloth, it is necessary to inquire of what threads is the velvet made, and if a mixture, the percentages to know what it is.

 

[marcodalondra]

I think nowadays, the velvet used in bespoke clothes is almost exclusively cotton velvet, Brisbane Moss and Duca Visconti di Modrone would be my go to places for the best cotton velvet

 

[Naive Jr.]

Thanks. I forgot that Brisbane Moss offers velvet, and I know that New & Lingwood advertised a velvet jacket this past autumn winter season and asserted the cloth was made by the premier velvet manufacturer in Italy whose name I've forgotten and somehow Duca Visconti di Modrone doesn't sound quite right, but I know I found it at once in Internet.