Vintage velveteen & velvet dresses: Sassy & slimming popular party fashions from the 1960s

A 1960s velvet dress was a staple for evening dressing, showing up at cocktail parties, holiday dinners, dances and formal at-home gatherings alike. Pattern companies like Vogue sold the look in a wide range of colors, cut into simple sheaths, princess-line dresses and long hostess gowns.

Velvet and velveteen look alike but are built differently. True velvet is woven from two layers of fabric bound together with a second warp thread, then sliced apart to create its pile, traditionally from silk. Velveteen uses cotton and a shorter, denser pile woven into the weft, which gives it a duller finish, a sturdier feel and a lower price tag than real velvet.

Velvet’s history goes back centuries. The fabric is believed to have originated in China and traveled west along the Silk Road, reaching Europe by around the 14th century. A single yard took painstaking hand looming to produce, so velvet became a marker of wealth worn by royalty and clergy for generations, until mechanized looms in the 1800s brought the price down and cotton velveteen gave households an even cheaper alternative.

By the 1960s, velvet had shed most of its aristocratic associations and settled into a seasonal fashion staple for fall and winter dressing. New finishes addressed the fabric’s old weak spot — some velvets were now spot resistant and crush proof, a real selling point for a material that used to show every mark. Manufacturers also branched into embossed, quilted and printed velveteens, a departure from the plain, solid finishes common in earlier decades.

The hostess dress was one specific use for velvet, dating back to the 1920s, when loose caftan-style gowns first became standard for informal at-home parties. By the sixties, the look had grown more tailored, ranging from fitted sheaths to long skirts paired with bright printed overblouses styled to look like elegant pajamas. Velvet worked just as well in this category as it did for cocktail and evening wear worn outside the home.

Velvet suited hostess dressing well because it worked across so many silhouettes, from a fitted princess-line dress to a fuller wrap style. Colors leaned toward saturated jewel tones, and accessories stayed simple, a single pair of drop earrings or a plain bracelet, so the dress itself stayed the focus. Velvet and velveteen carried this same formal-but-comfortable appeal into the 1970s, even as the more elaborate hostess gown gradually faded from fashion as home entertaining turned significantly less formal by decade’s end.

Here, we’ve collected velvet dresses that capture one fall and winter fashion cycle from the early sixties. Look closely at the styling notes too, since the jewelry, shoe brands and accessory pairings say as much about the era as the dresses themselves.