There are fabrics you wear and fabrics you feel, and velvet has always belonged firmly in the second category. Woven as two cloths at once and then cut apart to raise its pile, it catches the light, holds colour more deeply than almost anything else in the wardrobe, and turns the smallest gesture into something faintly cinematic. Winter is when it comes into its own.
Favourbrook's silk velvet is a blend of silk and rayon (pure silk velvet being rare and fearsomely expensive), and it is the cloth to choose for drape and lustre. It moves fluidly, takes French embroidery beautifully and glows under candlelight. The Whitehall Coat in Dark Green Latimer is slim-line and embroidered throughout; the Westminster Coat in Fox Brown Hengrave has Baroque embroidery rising from the hem; and the three-quarter-length Swing Jacket in Green Melford is the one to throw over a silk slip dress on a black tie evening. For something shorter, the Nehru-shaped Camden Jacket in Prune Windsor or the multi-button Trafalgar Jacket in Black Green Nene sit neatly over cigarette or palazzo trousers.
Cotton velvet is denser and more matte, with a firmer hand, making it silk velvet's more robust cousin. The Long Swing Coat in Claret and its Navy Mayfair counterpart are designed as both day pieces and evening layers. For a little wit, the Camden Jacket in Navy Bees and Waterloo Coat in Burgundy Bees are embroidered with our Napoleonic bee.
How To Wear It
Velvet loves contrast. Pair it with smoother things such as silk, satin or a fine knit, so it remains the most tactile element of the outfit, and let one velvet piece lead rather than piling velvet upon velvet (navy cotton velvet lounge trousers under a Trafalgar being the exception that proves the rule). Jewel tones and deep browns do the most in low winter light, and jewellery can be pared back, since the fabric is already doing the shimmering. Treat the coat as the outfit rather than the thing you leave at the cloakroom. On a December evening, it's the first and last thing anyone sees.
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