Guabello

Crisp Biella worsteds, woven at Mongrando since 1815

Guabello has woven wool at Mongrando, just west of Biella, since 1815, when the house opened as Guabello Antonio e Fratello. The family had worked in textiles since the eighteenth century, and for much of the nineteenth its looms turned out shawls and mantillas. By 1873 the mill ran 40 plain looms and 10 Jacquard looms, and it was known for its mantillas in the Flemish style.

The turn to menswear came in the mid-1930s, when four brothers, Nino, Angelo, Sergio and Danilo Guabello, chose to specialise in flannel. Royal Flannel became the house cloth, and its crown is still the Guabello hallmark. In 1991 Guabello became part of the Marzotto group. The Guabello archive, from 1948 to 2004, is kept at Strona, in the mill of its sister house, Fratelli Tallia di Delfino.

Guabello is a weaver rather than a merchant. Its wool comes mainly from Australia, and the warping, weaving and finishing are all done at Mongrando. Its books are the kind good tailors keep on the shelf: OneThirty for pure Super 130s suiting, Connoisseur for finer cloth, Vesper for ceremony and Vault for technical wool. The house's Motion finish gives worsted a natural stretch without any synthetic fibre.

We cut from Guabello when a garment needs a dry, crisp hand and cloth that stays stable in the length. Five of our garments are made in it: the Waterloo Brown Suit, the Patission Espresso Houndstooth Sport Jacket, the Monarch Mill Checkered Wool Blend Jacket and, from the Everyday Archive, the Brown Striped Guabello Wool Jacket and the Green Linen Trousers in a heavy 270-gram linen. Each is made to measure. Ask to see the Guabello bunches at your fitting.