Marzotto

Italian wool from a house founded at Valdagno in 1836

Marzotto began in 1836 as a modest wool weaving mill in Valdagno, a valley town near Vicenza in the Veneto. Luigi Marzotto founded it, and from 1842 his son Gaetano set it on an industrial footing. Later generations added a spinning mill for worsted yarn in 1880 and, in 1894, hydroelectric plants to power both the mills and the town.

The town tells the rest of the story. Under Gaetano Marzotto the younger the workforce grew from 2,500 to 12,500, and from the late 1920s he built the Città Sociale, a planned quarter for his workers with schools, a theatre, a music school, sports grounds and a lido. Time magazine reported in 1963 that the family owned Valdagno's hospitals, cafés and hotels, and even its railway station. For years its advertising line was simply "I habitually wear Marzotto".

Marzotto is the heavyweight of Italian cloth, and its size has paid for invention. In 1994 it brought natural stretch into wool suiting, and its books now take in machine-washable wool and a cloth that stretches both ways. The worsteds are even, true to sample and consistent from the first bolt to the last.

To us, Marzotto means range and reliability, and in our collection it covers both ends of the formality scale: the Dusty Rose Suit, in a cloth of wool, silk and linen, and The Casablanca White Tux. In the Everyday Archive it gives the Coffee Check Wool Trousers their wool and silk lustre and the Ivory Striped Wool Shorts their drape. Each is made to measure. When you come in for a fitting, ask for the Marzotto books.