Rare splendour

With its water-lapped palaces, canal-laced islands and golden basilicas rising from the tides, Venice is a floating masterpiece of creativity and craftsmanship. A metropolis of marble conceived from a cluster of mudflats, the City of Water’s fairy-tale setting has inspired centuries of artists and inventors. But while Venice’s urban fabric has always shaped the city, its fine fabrics once spun the fashion world.

From the 13th to 18th Centuries, Venice was the epicentre of the luxury textile trade, and no fabric from the maritime republic was more coveted than velvet. At the height of the industry in the 1500s, the clacking of 6,000 wooden looms echoed throughout the Venetian lagoon as the city’s Guild of Silk Weavers slowly wove velvet from thousands of silk threads to supply sumptuous patterned garments to the highest rung of Renaissance nobility.

Today, there's only one company left in Venice – and all of Italy – producing velvet on traditional wooden looms: the Luigi Bevilacqua Company, a small, family-run business that can trace its velvet-weaving lineage back to 1499. And if you follow the rhythmic clattering to a windowless workshop hidden off the Grand Canal, you’ll find a team of loyal weavers single-handedly preserving the secrets of Venetian velvet from sinking into oblivion.