Loro Piana

Superfine merino, cashmere and rare fibre

The Loro Piana family were wool merchants long before they were weavers. Originally from Trivero, they traded woollen cloth from the early nineteenth century, then moved to the Valsesia and ran spinning mills there. In 1924 the engineer Pietro Loro Piana founded the company that still carries the name, in Quarona, in the foothills of the Italian Alps.

The house built its reputation on fibre most mills never touch. From the start it dealt in cashmere, vicuña, linen and merino, and the modern books still run that way: superfine merino at the everyday end, cashmere and vicuña at the other. The finishing is the signature. The cloth is soft without being fragile, with a hand you notice the moment the bunch is opened.

For the tailor this is easy cloth to love and serious cloth to cut. Fine fibre forgives nothing: the canvas work and the final press both show through it. We take our time with it.

When a commission calls for the quietest possible luxury, this is usually where the cloth comes from. Nothing about it shouts. That is the point. Ask to see the Loro Piana book at a fitting, and bring a decision you are happy to spend a little longer on.