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The origins of weaving silk velvet are to be found in China, and then in the 13th century in Italy, probably Venice, soon famous for it's "ciselés-cut" velvets, one of the most beautiful exploitations of shaped velvet techniques that Gênes brings to perfection during the 14 and 15th centuries to finally, in the 16th century, be known as the famous velvet of Gênes.
These sumptuous fabrics fascinate the king of France and his court. Since 1536, François the 1st encourages the installation of Italian silk craftmen in the city of Lyons : so, the first workshop of velvet is created by a handful of men coming from Gênes

with material and "savoir faire".
The hand weaving looms were improved as soon as the beginning of the 17th century and thus, Lyons manufacturers became famous with their fabrics with mixed colors and numerous original designs. Under Louis XIV, thanks to his minister Colbert, the ART of weaving silk with its shaped fabrics ( brocades, damasks, lampas, velvets…) becomes a French prerogative and its influence is growing greater and greater in Europe.

Cut silk velvet weaving technique
	The complexity of a material as the cut velvet gave back the mechanical and industrial manufacture impossible. Also, today, the cut velvet always achieved with the hand on them " Hand Loom": the weaver repeats the same ancestral gestures for a daily production of about 1 to 2 feet. The cut velvet includes two effects of velvet that come to superimpose themselves: the velvet cut higher than the curly velvet (or curly).
To get these 2 effects, the weaver, while crossing chain and plot to make the grounding, insert 2 metallic stem called "irons" on which pass the thread intended to make the velvet: - the cylindrical "irons" that are going to produce rows of small buckles when they will be withdrawn of the textile. - the square "irons" provided on all their length with a fluting in which the weaver comes to slip a razor blade that sections all buckles formed by threads and produces henceforth tufts of hairs. (the thickness of these irons is lower to 1mm)

The hand weaving loom "Jacquard"

Since its first use in Lyons, Lyons weavers never ceased to improve it, on one hand to enhance the worth of these great figured fabrics, and on the other hand to make the heavy tasks of the workers easier the help of one or two other persons was necessary for the weaver, to select the complete raising of the chain threads.

Jacquard, born in Lyons in 1752, son of a working master in silk, taking benefit of the improvements brought successively during the 17 and 18th centuries perfected his new mechanics in 1804.
The simplification of the weaving owed to the Jacquard loom permitted to achieve a considerable economy of Manpower without being harmful to the quality of the fabric as much.

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