- Loro Piana used to be a simple textile-maker, today it is taking the world of luxury by storm
- The brand prides itself on sourcing the best raw materials on earth
- Loro Piana now produces mens and womenswear, as well as accessories
- In 2012, LVMH group acquired an 80 per cent stake in the company
Loro Piana is pretty much the worst-kept secret in the world of luxury.
The northern Italian lifestyle brand has been a textile and raw materials leader since its founding as a weaver in 1924, and it has supplied cloth and yarns to the top tier of men’s and women’s clothing ever since.
In short, its lofty pedigree guarantees means it‘s the kind of clothing brand that inspires life-long loyalty. Provided you know about it, that is—and it seems the power players of the art world have caught on.
But before we get to that, a bit more on Loro Piana. Its pedigree stands on one thing: those raw materials. The company’s technicians regularly go further than most—literally. Their journeys take them to the ends of the earth (the Alashan Desert of Inner Mongolia, Machu Picchu in Peru, even remote marshes in Bhutan) to secure the finest natural fibers known to man. Yet the nearly 100-year-old company also has a reputation for painstaking technical research and material innovation at its HQ in the Biella region, where most of Italy’s top-end weavers are based.
In 1994, Loro Piana developed the revolutionary waterproofing treatment for cashmere and wool called Storm System. The cloth is so highly regarded it often gets its own label alongside a broad range of high-end nametags. Storm System was, and is, a gamechanger; it meant an overcoat could finally feel luxurious and effectively repel the rain.
Loro Piana’s advantage, however, in a world of 24/7, in-your-face global fashion brands, is precisely that it is not as well-known as others. And since it was bought by LVMH in 2012, the brand has deliberately not rushed to stake a claim on a wider market.
Yet.
