The plush, tactile fabric is no longer just reserved for black-tie events. Here’s what to wear it with on a day-to-day basis.

Most of the team here at MR PORTER are fairly familiar with the concept of a velvet blazer. It’s the sort of thing you throw on to add a bit more pep to your eveningwear, or, perhaps, pair with some skinny jeans for a Saint-Laurent-esque, rock-and-roll-inspired outfit. But imagine our surprise, this season, when velvet started appearing on all sorts of items, from side-stripes on trousers, to zip-up blouson jackets and overshirts. This, we thought, is new territory – if not quite a giant leap for mankind, certainly a soft shuffle onwards for this tactile, rich, sheeny fabric. Which brings us to the question: if velvet is, as of this season, a new, everyday option for the male wardrobe, what exactly is the best way to wear it? Scroll down for our thoughts.

This richly coloured overshirt from Our Legacy has an almost kitsch appeal to it – as with many of the Swedish brand’s creations, it’s the kind of throwback item that you might find in a thrift store, but reimagined with a hefty dollop of style and executed to perfection in a cosy, tactile velvet fabric. Play up its vintage feel with a pair of stonewashed jeans from Parisian brand A.P.C., and enjoy the effortlessly cool feel that comes with such an outfit.

Engineered Garments is another brand that looks to the past in its designs, though it tends to focus on the history of American workwear. This bomber jacket offers an exceptionally wearable take on velvet, with its simple shape and subtle black tone, and is packed full of useful details such as the front welt pockets and multiple snap-fastening buttons. Continue the workwear theme by wearing it with a shirt from prodigious clothing collector Mr Nigel Cabourn – black goes with anything, but this subtle light brown shade will help soften the gloss of the velvet.

Milan’s Mr Massimo Alba is an expert in creating clothes that feel stylishly lived in, this relaxed velvet blazer being a case in point. Thanks to its relaxed shaping and soft fabric, it fits almost like a cardigan, but will nonetheless look smart (in an eccentric Italian aristocrat kind of way) with a pair of tailored trousers. We like this stone-coloured hound’s-tooth pair, also from the Massimo Alba brand – together with the green of the jacket it will create a sophisticated, and highly textured country-fied colour scheme.