Velvet – The Party Season Staple

Selecting a party season style that stands apart but stops short of peacocking can prove difficult. Case in point? Velvet. Get it right and you’re the epitome of understated opulence, but mess it up and you’re a woeful throwback to a bad, 1970s-flavoured acid trip.

Luxuriously smooth, soft to the touch and always equipped with a subtle sheen, velvet is a statement fabric that will get you noticed – if you want to make sure it’s for all the right reasons, take note of these foolproof tips for wearing velvet, whether you’re bound for a full-on formal affair or something a little more low-key…

On The Runway

While velvet’s been an autumn/winter evening wear classic for decades, this season saw designers put out a slew of new, much more decorative takes on this fabric that included everything from jacquard to digitally printed styles.

Credited with giving Gucci its sexy back in the 1990s, Tom Ford now seems more an advocate for understated elegance at the helm of his own label. For AW14, smoking jackets in silk jacquard and velvet were at the fore of his offering, running the gamut from slick and sophisticated to a little psychedelic.

The black smoking jacket with a jacquard that seemed to merge both floral and leopard prints was an obvious highlight – at once classic in its coloring and eye-catching in its finish. Also, sensing (albeit a little slowly) that sports luxe is still a force in fashion, Ford put a particularly luxurious spin on the hi-top trainer (or what he likes to class as the ‘tennis shoe’) with an upper made entirely of black velvet – covetable, yes, but probably not the best for hitting the court in:

Elsewhere, Dolce & Gabbana gave velvet their signature grandioso treatment, showing smoking jackets and full suits printed with feudal-inspired imagery that ranged from saints and knights to cathedral interiors.