Whenever I hear the word “velvet,” I think of three things:

1. The 1989 song “Black Velvet” by Alannah Myles – It won her a Grammy in 1990 for Best Female Rock Vocalist, but if you don’t remember it, the chorus goes:

   Black velvet and that little boy smile
   Black velvet with that slow southern style
   A new religion that’ll bring you to your knees
   Black velvet if you please

   The song is kind of bluesy rock and has this awesome music video to go with it where Alannah Myles is singing on the porch of a log cabin wearing jeans with black leather chaps. I’ve never understood what “black velvet” refers to, so in writing this post, I looked it up on Wikipedia (which anyone can contribute to, so you know it’s got to be true), and “black velvet” is apparently a reference to Elvis Presley because his image is painted on so many black velvet paintings (perhaps even beating out dogs playing poker).  Fascinating!

2. Velvet Jones – This is a character created by Eddie Murphy on “Saturday Night Live” in the early 1980s. According to Rolling Stone, Velvet is #16 in the 40 best “Saturday Night Live” characters of all time. He was the founder of the Velvet Jones School of Technology, which offered books and educational materials on jobs people don’t usually train for (like being a pimp), and also sold trashy “romance” novels where there wasn’t much romance.

3.  Holiday attire!

This last item is obviously the subject of this post. As we head into the holiday season, I’m starting to put the velvet (and also the lurex … because it’s totally festive to dress like tinsel during the holidays) into heavy rotation. Velvet is a rich, decadent fabric that offers a lot of warmth on chilly evenings, and it makes me think of Santa and his elves. I do think you have to be careful to find a good quality of velvet (otherwise, rather than feeling soft, it feels sort of itchy), and it’s important to make sure the cut isn’t too loose so it doesn’t come off as too loungey (which happened with this emerald velvet suit I had been lusting over; when I put it on, I felt like I belonged at the Playboy Mansion in the 1970s). Also, I think it’s good to stay away from a true Christmas red or green unless you want to role-play as the aforementioned Santa or one of his elves.

One of the alternatives to full velvet that I really loved when I saw it was the velvet-flocked dress I’m wearing above from Adam Lippes, which I got from Matchesfashion (www.matchesfashion.com). I met Adam at one of his trunk shows, and he explained that some of the velvet is scraped off of the fabric by a special machine, which leaves this amazing, distinctive design that is complemented by the gold bursts. Beautiful! I’m wearing mine in this California autumn heat with Christian Louboutin ankle-strap heels that I got from Net-a-Porter (www.net-a-porter.com), but I think it would look just as amazing with stockings and booties.

So haul out the holly, step into the velvet and get your holiday on! Thanksgiving is next week!