Loro Piana
“In order to appreciate our products it is not enough just to have an opportunity to buy it. It’s not a fashion.” Loro PianaUnlike other companies that always must keep instep under vigilant eye of marketing, The Loro Piano follows only its own passion. The Loro Piana loves polo and dressage, sailing and races antique cars. No wonder that besides fabrics they have become famous for clothes and accessories for theses noble entertainments.
The Loro Piana is the world leader of manufacturing the most prestigious fabrics: thin and super thin wool, cashmere and vicugna. One of the best Loro Piana fabrics is Baby-Cashmere. It is very thin and soft wool exclusively obtained from the Hyrcus goat kid. It’s gathered by means of delicate procedure done only once in a goat’s life when it is between 3 and 12 months old.
The Loro Piana offers lines of clothes for men, women and children and an impressive choice of accessories: from scarves and shawls up to small leather goods.
The Loro Piana stores offer the most complete range of made-to-measure service.
History
Loro Piana has been operated by the family for six generations starting in the middle of XIX century.
They know everything about the most expensive and magnificent fabrics in the world. They know about wild goats in Mongolia and China and receive the best raw material for cashmere. They are able to extract the thinnest merino wool from Australia and New Zealand. They signed an official agreement with the Government of Peru to save the vicuna; a rare animal which produces the most expensive wool.
Loro Piana is well-known as a manufacturer of the best cashmere and wool in the world.
The majority of well-known fashion houses use Loro Piana fabric for their collections since Sergio and Pierre Luigi started managing the company.
The two brothers replace each other as the president of this small empire every three years, but they operate together, as one. Without this unity they would not be able to make such revolutionary changes in their business.
In the middle of the 90’s they decided that they would not just give their fabrics to the famous fashion houses but also produce their own collection.
Loro Piana produces clothes for men and women: classical, elegant, and high quality. Loro Piano clients are called “quality addicted” – crazy about quality.
Today the Loro Piana has 70 shops worldwide which will expand to 100 stores by 2008.
Fabrics
Today Loro Piana is one of the largest companies producing high-quality fabrics: merino wool from New Zealand and Australia, the best cashmere from Mongolia and China. Loro Piana cashmere is really first-class quality, as well as New Zealand and Australian merino wool. Besides Loro Piana has an exclusive right to produce the most expensive wool in the world - a wool Peruvian vicuna.
As always they pay attention on the selection of the best raw material in the world in order to guarantee the maximum quality standards on each stage of manufacturing process.
Cashmere
Cashmere comes from Hyrcus goats, which originated in the mountainous regions of Asia, and are now found mainly in Northern China, Mongolia, Iran and Afghanistan. In order to survive their hostile environment of bitter winters and torrid summers, the goats develop an under-fleece, called “duvet”, under their coarser outer fleece that consists of extremely soft fibres concentrated on a small surface area, whose innumerable tiny hairs minimize thermal osmosis.
These extraordinary fibres are used to make cashmere yarns and fabrics extremely fine and soft, that guarantees an exceptional protection against the cold.
It is worth noting that these special goats produce just 150-200 grams of underfleece a year, which is what makes cashmere so precious. Its value is further increased by the difficulties in gathering and checking the quality of the fibre.
Baby Cashmere
Baby Cashmere fibre is worked in accordance with Loro Piana’s tradition of excellence, and destined for the creation of an exclusive range of products for the most discerning consumers: the “Baby Cashmere” by Loro Piana offered in a variety of colours and produced by various processes, all of which have been carefully developed in order to guarantee and maintain the unique and unsurpassed softness and hand of this extraordinary fibre.
Vicuna
Considered the world over as queen of animals of the Andes and sacred to the Incas, the Vicuña, with its extremely soft sun-colored fleece, lives in the highlands of Peru, 4000 meters above sea level.
Venerated and profoundly respected, there were one million Vicuña animals in the pre-Columbian age, but the subsequent arrival of the conquistadores, who hunted them indiscriminately for their precious fleece, led to virtual extinction. By the 1960’s, barely 5,000 Vicuña animals were still alive when Perù initiated and created the first natural reserves, which today which are home to almost 100,000 animals.
But the real turning point in the preservation of these marvelous animals came in 1994, when the Peruvian government signed an agreement with Loro Piana to handle the reintroduction of Vicuña fibre to the world market, the sale of which was long prohibited in an attempt to safeguard the survival of the species.
It is an inheritance represented by the finest animal fibre in the world, characterized by extraordinary lightness, softness and strength. With an average diameter of 12-13 micron (1 micron = 1 thousandth of a millimeter), Vicuña has incomparable thermoregulation properties, providing protection against the winter cold and summer heat of the Andean highlands, where the animals have developed their extremely precious down to survive and whose characteristic colouring ranges from golden chestnut to an intense tawny brown.
Ultimately, the adult vicuna animals produce only 250 grams of wool every two years which, after being sheared and sorted, becomes no more than 120 grams. It takes the fleeces of 25-30 animals to make just one Vicuña overcoat: the intrinsic value of vicuña fabric or a garment is therefore further increased by the rarity of the fibre and the authentic art of working it.
Tasmania
Truly original and only by Loro Piana, Tasmanian® has become synonymous with “light wool fabric” according to the Italian language dictionary.
This extraordinary worsted fabric takes its name from the uncontaminated island of Tasmania, south of Australia, where it was originally made exclusively.
Inspired by the famous Loro Piana “priest cloth” (a lightweight fabric produced especially for ecclesiastical robes), was born in the 1960s as a response to the growing need for a new type of clothing that would reflect modern day sensibilities; thin, versatile and virtually wrinkle-resistant, Tasmanian® was particularly suitable for people living and working in air-conditioned surroundings.
Today, Tasmanian® is made from the most select wools produced in Australia, the ideal habitat of the Merino sheep whose fleece provides an extremely fine fibre which, together with the most advanced spinning techniques, makes it possible to obtain a yarn so fine that one kilogram would cover a 100 kilometres.
The special characteristics of breathability, thermal insulation and sturdiness typical of wool, enhanced by advanced technological processes, make Loro Piana’s Tasmanian® a uniquely light and comfortable fabric (also in the Summer Tasmanian® and Winter Tasmanian® versions). At 250 grams per meter, Tasmanian® also represents the lightest possible fabric for dressing with elegance every season of the year.
Zelander
Bright, versatile and remarkably wrinkle resistant: these are the characteristics of the Zelander® collection, suiting fabrics that are distinctive for their light weight and cool, soft hand. The Zelander® fabrics are made using a select quality of New Zealand Merino wool that has an exceptionally clean and white look, characterized by the sheer strength and length of the fibre in relation to its fineness.
Currently available in limited quantities, this particular type of merino wool is made possible by the ideal environmental conditions in which the flocks live, along with the professionalism and dedication to quality of the sheep farmers in New Zealand, a land that is still largely wild and uncontaminated.
Through exclusive spinning and weaving techniques, Loro Piana has been able to further enhance the already distinctive properties of this fibre, interpreting it in a range of modern, dynamic and highly wearable fabrics that guarantee seasonless comfort in garments made exclusively of pure wool.
Designed to be tailored into luxury casual wear, including suits, jackets, overcoats and outerwear, Zelander® is for those who appreciate impeccable clothing made from high-performance, natural fabrics that are both practical and functional.
Zenith
The Zenit collection is born of an idea stemming from a record: the excellence of the raw material selected and purchased directly by Loro Piana in its country of origin – impervious areas which, by virtue of a sublime contradiction, give rise to exceptionally fine and soft fibres.
Loro Piana uses these extraordinary fibres to make fabrics that go into clothing meant to be worn and collected, produced using the most select and exceptional material, including:
The finest Australian and New Zealand merino wools known as Top Line-1PP, which represent the best selection of the season’s shearing. The 1PP – which comes from the symbols ++ (plus plus) – identifies the top level of fineness and style determined on the basis of a series of parameters in accordance with the original dictates of British Wool as applied today by the Associated Wool Exporters (AWEX) Council. Only a few dozen of the one million bales auctioned every year can be classified and marked 1PP. Loro Piana interprets fibres from these bales in a line of rare and precious fabrics, such as Super 170’s (15 micron) and Super 190’s (13.8 micron), all made from the best that the wool market has to offer.
Philosophy
One of the brothers, Sergio says: "For us luxury is a faultless quality at all levels starting from the raw materials to the strict control over manufacturing process. Without it we cannot hope to meet the requirements of the buyers".
The Loro Piana’s buyers are very demanding, financially successful, socially active, they travel a lot and are capable to choose what they want without any help.
For more details see
www.loropiana.com
