On our Romance armchair in black lacquer, moving from aubergine velvet to Nobilis Velours Faon takes the price from €2,300 to €5,000. Same frame, same foam, same upholsterer. Different fabric. It is the question we hear most often on the phone, and it is a fair one: French velvet fabric houses like Nobilis, Pierre Frey and Lelièvre, or the Italian Dedar, what do they give you that a €25 a meter chain-store velvet does not? Four things: the fiber, the density of the pile, how the cloth is dyed and woven, and how it ages. Everything else is vocabulary. Here is what we have learned by putting different velvets on the same seat.
Four houses, four different stories
These names get lumped together. They are less alike than people think.
Nobilis started in 1928 in a shop at 29 rue Bonaparte in Paris, founded by Adolphe Halard. The family still runs it (Norman Halard is president today), and the house claims about 5,000 references in stock across fabric, wallpaper and rugs. The Velours Faon we use comes from its Boudoir collection: a patterned velvet inspired by fawn hide, woven, according to Nobilis, on old and rare looms in what they call a semi-artisanal process. More on it below.
Pierre Frey dates from 1935. It is a family group that bought several historic houses in the 1990s: Braquenié, Le Manach, Boussac, Fadini Borghi. Its strength is archive and color. Its mohair velvets are among the most requested by Paris decorators, and the house was showing again at Paris Design Week this month alongside Élitis and CMO.
Lelièvre is the oldest of the four and the most velvet-focused. Henri Lelièvre founded it on July 1, 1914 by taking over Piquée and Logerot, a velvet workshop. Mohair, wool, cotton and linen velvets first, then silk velvet, created by Paul Lelièvre in 1942. In 1997 Lelièvre acquired Tassinari & Chatel, the Lyon silk weaver that still keeps a hand-loom atelier on rue Janin in the Croix-Rousse district. When a client asks for "real old-school velvet", that is where we send them to look.
Dedar is Italian, founded in 1976 near Como, family-run as well. It produced the furnishing fabrics for Hermès from 2011 to 2020, which tells you the level. Its cotton velvet Adamo & Eva is probably the most specified plain velvet in European architects' projects: 100% cotton, woven in Italy, 140 cm wide, more than sixty colors, 50,000 Martindale cycles.
What a fabric-house velvet actually changes
A velvet is a ground cloth with a pile standing up out of it. Everything happens in that pile: its fiber, its height, its density, and how it is cut and anchored.
Take the Nobilis Velours Faon. The published spec sheet reads: 76% viscose, 12% cotton, 12% polyester, with a pile of 100% viscose, 135 cm wide, 1,090 grams per linear meter, 50,000 Martindale cycles, pattern repeat 67.5 by 63 cm. More than a kilo per meter is heavy. That weight is what you feel when you run your hand across it: the pile is dense, it lies down and stands back up, it catches light differently from every angle. A €25 polyester velvet often weighs half as much, with a short pile and a uniform sheen that does not move when you do.
The second difference is dye. The houses tend to dye in deep baths, in the yarn or in the piece, which gives colors with body: an aubergine that reads brown in shadow and red in sunlight. An industrial velvet gives a flat color. On a retailer's product photo the two look identical. In a living room at 6 p.m., they do not.
The third difference is less glamorous: width and cutting. A house velvet comes 135 or 140 cm wide, with a pile direction the upholsterer has to respect across every panel of a chair. A pattern repeat like the Faon means ordering more yardage. That is part of the gap between our two Romance armchairs: the fabric costs more, and you need more of it.
French velvet fabric houses versus a chain velvet, in numbers
To read a fabric you need one figure to start with: the Martindale. It is a standardized abrasion test (BS EN ISO 12947-2). The fabric is rubbed against a standard wool cloth in a figure-eight motion and the cycles are counted until two threads break or the pile is worn through. The thresholds the trade generally uses, per the specification guide published by Kothea, run as follows.
- Under 10,000 cycles: decorative, cushions, fabrics that never get rubbed.
- 10,000 to 15,000: light domestic use.
- 15,000 to 25,000: general domestic use, the living room sofa, the dining chairs.
- 25,000 to 40,000: heavy domestic, light contract.
- 40,000 and up: contract, hotels, restaurants, offices.
- 100,000 and up: severe contract.
At 50,000 cycles, both the Velours Faon and the Adamo & Eva are hotel-grade fabrics. A furniture chain can also print 50,000 cycles on a polyester: synthetic fiber resists abrasion very well. This is where the figure misleads. Martindale measures wear by rubbing, and nothing else.
What it does not measure: pile recovery (a velvet that lies down for good after six months of sitting may well have 60,000 cycles), lightfastness, water marks, pilling, how the color shifts. A dense cotton velvet at 30,000 cycles will usually age better than a polyester at 60,000, because it develops a patina instead of a shine. We would rather have a fabric that takes real marks than one that stays new and dull.
Cotton, mohair, viscose, polyester: the choice that matters
Cotton gives a matte, warm velvet that marks when you sit and recovers with brushing. It takes deep colors well. It is the velvet for dining chairs and reading chairs. It does not like water: a damp stain leaves a ring if you rub instead of blotting.
Mohair (the hair of the angora goat) is the velvet of bar banquettes and theater seats. Stiff pile, dry sheen, abrasion resistance that passes 100,000 cycles on good qualities, and a hand some people dislike because it is faintly scratchy. It is the most expensive of the four and the only one you can put in a hotel lobby without a second thought.
Viscose is regenerated cellulose. It gives the sheen closest to silk, a heavy drape, a color that changes with the light. The Faon's pile is viscose. Its weakness is well known: it hates water and wet rubbing. Choose it for a chair you look at as much as you sit in, not for the sofa where the kids eat cereal.
Polyester has real qualities: it shrugs off water and stains, it lasts, it costs almost nothing. Its faults are sensory. It runs hot in summer, it builds static, it shines evenly. It ages without patina. For a furnished rental, it is a sensible choice. For a €2,300 armchair you plan to keep for twenty years, we do not offer it.
What we do, and what we do not
We do not carry forty fabrics. On Cardinal, two velvets, green and brown, or cowhide. On Romance, aubergine and écru, plus the Nobilis Velours Faon on the black lacquer version. The short list has one reason: each fabric was tested on the design. A supple velvet folds nicely over the rounded seat of the Romance armchair; a velvet that is too stiff breaks awkwardly on the scalloped skirt. We looked, and we kept what worked.
The price differences are public. A Cardinal chair is €990 in velvet and €1,600 in cowhide. A Romance armchair is €2,300 in aubergine or écru velvet and €5,000 in Velours Faon. That gap is the fabric, the extra yardage for the pattern match, and the upholstery time.
We send samples before you order, and we recommend it. A velvet should be judged in your light, on your floor, not on a screen. If you are torn between two colors, ask for both. And if your project calls for a fabric we do not carry, tell us: we answer quickly, and we will say plainly whether the design suits it.
Questions we get asked
Will a 50,000-cycle velvet last twenty years?
The figure says it will resist abrasion far beyond domestic use. It says nothing about sun, cats, or a red wine stain treated badly. A cotton or mohair velvet that is looked after (regular brushing, no direct sun, stains blotted rather than rubbed) lasts twenty years without trouble. A viscose velvet needs more care. That is the price of its sheen.
Why is the same velvet sold at such different prices?
Because the houses sell through decorators and upholsterers, with trade prices and public prices. The figure on a reseller's website is not what an architect pays. For you, the fabric is built into the price of the chair, and that price is the same for everyone.
Velvet marks. Is that a defect?
No, it is the nature of the material. The pile lies down under pressure and the color reads differently there. A soft brush in the direction of the pile lifts it back. On a cotton velvet those marks settle over time and become the chair's patina. If you want a seat that never marks, you need a different fabric, or cowhide.
Can a fabric-house velvet go into a hotel?
Yes, provided you check two things: a Martindale of at least 40,000 cycles and a fire rating that suits the building (in France, M1 for public buildings and EN 1021 for seating; in the US your specifier will have local codes). The houses above offer treated versions or contract references. For a guest-room project we check those points with you before production starts.
Fabrics and prices sit on every product page in the armchairs collection, and samples ship on request.