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The story of Loro Piana stretches back over two centuries, to the early 1800s when the Loro Piana family began trading wool in Trivero, a small town in Italy’s Piedmont region. This Alpine landscape, famed for its textile traditions, nurtured an ethos of precision and refinement that would define the Maison for generations. In 1924, engineer Pietro Loro Piana formally established Ing. Loro Piana & C. in Quarona, laying the foundation for what would become one of the most revered luxury textile houses in the world. Under Franco Loro Piana, the company emerged after World War II as a trusted supplier of exquisite fabrics for couture ateliers from Paris to New York. However, it was with the vision of Franco’s sons, Sergio and Pier Luigi, in the 1970s and 1980s, that Loro Piana moved beyond supplying cloth to creating finished garments and accessories, transforming rare fibres like vicuña, extra-fine merino, and, above all, cashmere into the soul of the brand.
Cashmere has long been woven into the daily rhythms of life in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, where nomadic herders have cultivated an intimate relationship with the land and their herds for centuries. Across the steppes, families follow seasonal migrations that sustain both animals and grasslands, protecting one of the world’s last great ecosystems. At the heart of this cycle is the Capra Hircus goat, whose ultra-fine underfleece is nature’s answer to the extremes of desert winters and summers. Each spring, as the goats naturally shed, herders carefully hand-comb the down, a method as gentle as it is ancient. Out of this process comes a fibre of astonishing rarity: after cleaning and dehairing, a single goat produces only around 200 grams of usable cashmere annually, an amount so small that it underscores both its scarcity and its value.
When Pier Luigi Loro Piana travelled to China in 1986, he stepped into this living tradition. The visit marked the beginning of a bond between Italian craftsmanship and Mongolian heritage that would reshape the landscape of luxury textiles. By building direct partnerships with herders, Loro Piana ensured not only access to the world’s most refined cashmere but also a system of mutual respect that safeguarded ancestral practices. Over the decades, this collaborative approach has become one of the Maison’s defining principles: luxury built not on exploitation, but on preservation.
This philosophy has given rise to pioneering initiatives that protect both the fibre and the ecosystem. The Loro Piana Method, launched in 2009, brought herders and scientists together to improve the fineness and consistency of cashmere while safeguarding the Alashan goat. The Cashmere of the Year Award, established in 2015, further elevated the role of herders by celebrating their expertise and incentivising quality improvements. In less than a decade, fibre fineness dropped from 13.9 microns to a record 12.8 microns in 2024, setting a new benchmark for luxury. More recently, the Resilient Threads program, developed with international partners, has worked to support communities in Mongolia’s Sukhbaatar Province while protecting the biodiversity of the Eastern Steppe, one of the planet’s last intact grassland ecosystems. In this way, the pursuit of excellence has been bound to environmental stewardship and cultural resilience, ensuring that cashmere’s legacy continues for generations.
Loro Piana’s respect for heritage has always been matched by a belief in innovation. Its most recent project, Smart Bales, digitises the cashmere journey from goat to atelier, offering unprecedented transparency and traceability. First presented at VivaTech 2025 in Paris, the project blends cutting-edge technology with textile tradition, preserving not only the fibres themselves but also the story of their passage through hands and landscapes. For Loro Piana, progress is not rupture but continuity, an evolution that strengthens trust between herders, artisans, and consumers.
Ultimately, Loro Piana’s creations embody a delicate balance between nature and craft, past and future, rarity and refinement. To touch a Loro Piana garment is to encounter more than softness; it is to feel centuries of human ingenuity, the resilience of nomadic traditions, and the quiet harmony of an ecosystem. By investing in the preservation of both culture and environment, the Maison ensures that the luxury it offers is not fleeting but enduring. In every thread lies a story of Italy, of Mongolia, of nature itself, woven together into something truly unparalleled.
