How to

Festive furnishing: how to style velvet for the holidays

Velvet: luxe, tactile, and when it comes to styling it, a little mysterious. It’s easy to shy away from adding velvet to your home – but while it might feel difficult to incorporate velvet into your existing decor scheme, adding velvet to your interior is a great way to lift its holiday spirit and create a cosy winter look. So for the fifth guide in our festive furnishing series, we’ve compiled our best tips for styling velvet this season, whether you’ve got big velvet pieces to accessorise or want to know how to add small velvet pieces to your room’s current look.

Start small with velvet accessories

If you’re nervous about styling velvet, there’s no need to go big at home. Adding smaller velvet accessories is a non-committal, affordable way to try out the trend. Adding a velvet throw to a plain sofa will instantly upgrade your living room. Or try small velvet throw pillows – there’s plenty of choice, from full velvet embroidered pillows to pillows with velvet borders to help you dip your toe into the velvet interior look. This contrast black and white velvet pillow is a clever way to add velvet to modern or industrial interiors. While this pink and black velvet pillow has vintage appeal.

Pair velvet with gold

If you’ve already got a velvet bed or velvet sofa and want to really amp up the elegance of your room, pairing velvet pieces with gold accents and accessories will give you an instantly luxe look that’s inviting and sophisticated. This large gold studded vase is great in dining rooms or kitchens, or double down on the drama with a hammered gold vase. When it comes to ambience, gold lighting is the way to go – like this gold leaf chandelier and large gold pineapple lamp.

Go max luxe with jewel tones

Another way to increase the glamour of your velvet sofa and other large velvet furnishings is to add accessories in jewel tones. Most velvet furniture sticks to this elegant palette, so adding extra decor pieces in similar shades will really make your velvet statement piece stand out, without having to use extra velvet. This emerald green malachite dish and blue lapis espresso cup set will add fitting drama to your kitchen, while a green pendant light or leaf back red dining chair will bring the luxe look into your dining room.