Velvet
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Velvet. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
one of the most familiar of what are known as pile fabrics. It is produced by adding to the usual warp and weft threads of plain weaving an additional row of warp yarns which are woven into the ground of the cloth, and passed over wires on the surface. In the of a loop pile the wires are simply drawn out, but for velvet or other cut pile a knife is first passed along a groove on the top of each wire to cut the pile before the wire is withdrawn. Real velvet is made entirely of silk, but a kind is made with a silk face on a cotton basis. The name velveteen is, however, extended to fabrics in which silk and cotton are mixed throughout. Some of the richest and most artistic of the many splenen did textiles woven on Italian looms in the 15th and 16th centuries were made, in part at least, of velvet. Similiar stuffs were also made in Spain and Flanders. Many of these were for ecclesiastical vestments, altar cloths, and the like, as well as for hangings. Plain velvets were VENDÉE, LA likewise woven. The effect of a raised pattern in velvet on a plain or figured silk ground is often very beautiful. Sometimes a diaper design was formed of a long upon a short pile, called velvet upon velvet, and this too has a fine effect. Choice examples of these old velvet fabrics are preserved in some industrial art collections. Velvet is believed to have been first made in China. Modern velvets are largely made at Lyons and Crefeld.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a closely woven silk fabric having a short, thick pile on one side only. The pile is produced by an extra system of warp threads. These are always of silk. The ground warp and the weft may be of cotton, but are of silk in the best grades of velvet. The pile warp, during the process of weaving, is passed over small brass wires laid across the width of the fabric. The next weft thread fastens the warps down. Another wire is inserted, and the following weft draws the warps over it in the same way. When a few inches have been thus woven the wires are withdrawn and the loops are left standing on the surface. When the web is complete the loops are cut. The pile is sheared to a level, brushed up, and pressed. From forty to sixty loops to an inch are woven in velvet, the process being necessarily slow. When the loops are left uncut the fabric is called terry velvet. See Terry; Weaving ; Pile; Velveteen
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts describe a loom in which the pile warp is lifted over brass wires that are then withdrawn, Collier's noting in 1921 that a knife runs along a groove in each wire to cut the pile. That method survives only in specialist and antique weaving: since the mid-20th century most velvet has been made on double-plush looms, which weave two cloths face to face and slit the connecting pile with a travelling blade, producing two lengths at once instead of the slow forty to sixty loops an inch Aiton's described in 1910. The other break is in the fibre. Aiton's insisted the pile warp is always of silk, but the bulk of velvet sold today is rayon, polyester or nylon, often blended with elastane for stretch, and the silk-and-cotton velveteen trade the entries treat as the cheap alternative has largely vanished. Lyons and Krefeld are no longer the centres of the industry; most velvet is now woven in Asia, with a small luxury trade in Italy.
Written for this edition, 2026.