L'Arlésienne by Augustin Dumas, in velvet dress around 1865, Museon Arlaten d'Arles.

The king Velvet

Silk velvet is generosity and sensuality made fiber. The velvet leaves no one indifferent, whether or not armored or fashioned, upholstered or dressed, cut, looped or chiseled. It is the sweetness, the freshness, the warmth. It caresses, caresses us, it is the absolute stuff, the fatal stuff.

Of course we are talking about silk and hand weaving on this site, but textile industry still knows how to make beautiful velvet, while so many fabrics have disappeared, sacrificed shamelessly on the altar of profitability and globalization.
Of course, there remains Tassinari, and Prelle, and no doubt others, who are counted on the fingers of one hand, to weave sumptuous fabrics from a glorious past, but who still has access to these treasures? The National Furniture, its foreign counterparts, rich collectors. Your pay would not be enough to buy a centimeter high of a chiselled velvet cup intended for Louis XIV or one of his peers.
I know a veloutiere. A real velvet, which knows how to create and weave extraordinary chiselled velvet. Best Worker in France, having long had his workshop in operation, failing to find a commercial outlet for his sumptuous fabrics of furnishing, failing even to find a Lyon manufacturer worthy of the name that provides him even that work , She had to give up her activity to go and weave in the window of a museum. Yes, she weaves fabrics that she has not created, for clients she will not know, in a workshop that is not her own. And in her studio, the crafts have fallen asleep, in perfect condition, ready to restart tomorrow morning at the first hour. A miracle that will probably never happen. I know, I feel them, right behind this wall. The elephant cemetery. She is my neighbor and I dare not even go to see her.
I will not mention her name because she might not like me to describe her like that. There is a taste and a scent of pain. His trades are asleep, and I have no more trades. Dog of life...
But back to our velvet. You will find a technical explanation of this wonder elsewhere in this site, in the fabric section. Here we will speak only of beauty.
Eyes of velvet, no velvet, velvet paw, velvet peach, velvet skin, swallow the Good God or the little Jesus in red velvet breeches for a good wine, an iron hand in a velvet glove ... What object has aroused so many expressions to speak of gentleness?
Silk velvet is a generous and sensual material that has no equal, no rival. It is a heavy stuff, a rich stuff.
Watch this velvet, caress it ...See how he plays light under your flattering finger.Sometimes dark and deep as ink.Sometimes bright and bright as lightning.
The brilliance and the mattness alternate constantly under the influence of the light of which he plays with delight without ever ending. The velvet lives ...