Happy Nice Mall

I wrote less than ten years ago a column It’s about an extraordinary new venture courtesy of Fendi called Pesce d’Aprile, where a customer can travel to a crocodile farm in Singapore, choose the reptile to make their bag of, and then track their progress via an app. Billed as the fashion equivalent of “Know your food,” it was the first of its kind.

It’s also completely made up (by me): an April Fool’s joke invented to highlight how far fashion brands will go to distinguish themselves and that customers are increasingly concerned with the origin of their products.

But now, finally, the joke’s on me.

Known for its plush, modest knits that look like they’re woven from liquidated banknotes, luxury brand Loro Piana has embarked on a program that will allow its customers to follow every step of the way in the production of one of their goat-made cashmere baby sweaters. to store.

It may seem like a simple thing: How can a brand not know exactly where and how its products are made? Yet the fashion supply chain is so complex that its many moving parts span so many countries and processes that for most of us the origin stories of our garments are almost completely incomprehensible.

“We believe companies know where jobs come from, and in fact, many companies lost that ability a long time ago,” he said. Maxine Bedatis the founder of the New Standard Institute, a nonprofit founded to define and create a framework for fashion’s sustainability claims. “The more items you add to your offering, the more pervasive and complex the production becomes, and as a result it is rare today for fashion companies to be both able to monitor entire supply chains and be willing to disclose them.”

Consider that the average merino wool sweater will travel. 18,000 miles According to British farm-to-table luxury brand Bamford, it’s throughout the manufacturing process before it reaches a store shelf.

If a brand is small enough to do everything on its own, or a new brand has been built with transparency in mind, this journey is of course easier to trace. But even a decade ago, few founders thought this way, and almost no brand owns every step of the creation process, from the farm to the finished product.

For the consumer looking for a holiday gift, this means that when browsing shelves looking for the perfect thick knit or cozy shawl, it is extremely difficult to know whether what you see was made responsibly, with environmental and social considerations. mind.

Therefore, two years ago, Loro Piana, Acquired by LVMH for $2.6 billion in 2013Fabio d. Angelantonio, former CEO of Loro Piana (replaced by Damien Bertrand at the end of October). And this bail came off the back of that herd.

The project was introduced earlier this year with Loro Piana’s vicuña products and has now expanded to include the company’s bestsellers, cashmere and baby cashmere. This was no small undertaking, given that the average Loro Piana cashmere sweater will be woven by around 100 people in at least three countries on the way from Mongolia to its final store in Italy, and it covers more than 13 different processes between 18 months and two years.

Presumably, such traceability was only possible because the luxury brand … well, had the luxury of getting to know its shepherds – sourcing, spinning, weaving and finishing cashmere Since 1924 – and because their extremely well-heeled customers are willing to pay for knowledge. And Loro Piana is increasingly gambling that it will be part of its fashion value proposition. Every physical gift must come with the gift of knowledge.

Think of it as drip transparency rather than drip economy. This is how it starts.

From Goat to Coat: How to Make a Loro Piana Sweater

With the onset of spring, cashmere collection begins in Inner Mongolia in northern China and in Mongolia. In many cases, shepherds have worked with Loro Piana for generations. The process takes place only once a year.

Goats have a nature to thank for their annual buzz. Cashmere goats are double-haired animals, meaning they produce two types of hair: outer and lower fleece. The fleece protects the goats from the extreme cold in the region and starts growing in September and October when temperatures start to drop. By May, the bottom fleece has reached its full potential and is ready to be picked up by shepherds. Goats don’t lose much – their fleece naturally falls off.

Fun fact: All cashmere is wool, but not all wool is cashmere. Wool is a general term used to describe the soft undercoat of some animals (sheep, alpaca, goat, etc.). Cashmere refers specifically to the very valuable fibers of cashmere and some other goat breeds.

Across the region, farmers such as Ha Si Ba Gen make a living by raising and herding goats. Mongolia produces a third of the world’s cashmere, and luxury fabric accounts for 40 percent of the country’s non-mineral exports.

A representative of Loro Piana told The Times that the animal and working conditions were inspected by “accredited third parties”. After all, it was in everyone’s interest to maintain perfect conditions, as Mr d’Angelantonio, the former CEO of the company, said. “The wool of a happy sheep is better wool than a very stressed sheep,” he said.

Once the haircut is over, shepherds usually sell the wool to a third-party collector, who in turn sells the materials—a cashmere wool blend from dozens, if not hundreds, of local farms—to various brands. In this case, the cashmere is delivered to Alashan Zuo Qi Dia Li Cashmere in Inner Mongolia, which has been a third-party “collaboration” partner in the Loro Piana production chain since 2005. Here the wool is cleaned and inspected.

Although Loro Piana has explored building its own facilities in Inner Mongolia, it has instead established long-term relationships with local partners. A representative of the company explained that it is looking for a production facility in China that suits its specific needs, but the difficulties of operating there as a foreign company are insurmountable. As a result, Alashan Zuo Qi Dia Li Cashmere plays a key role in the creation of Loro Piana garments and takes charge of the first round of cleaning before the wool even leaves the area.

From there, the cleaned cashmere is transported by truck to Beijing or Mongolia’s capital, Ulan Bator, for rigorous quality control testing. Sharp eyes check out the occasional dark hair hidden in the white wool. (These feathers cannot be dyed and are more difficult to detect and remove later.) The cashmere bales are then transported to a laboratory (population: 646) in Roccapietra, Italy, for another round of quality control.

Next stop: The Loro Piana factory in Quarona, Italy, founded in 1924 by the Loro Piana family. Cashmere lots (industry metering) are transferred to a blending machine that unfolds the fibers and flattens them for further processing. First time. This process allows for easier manipulation.

After carding (thawing and cleaning), the fibers are loaded into a spinning machine. Simply put, this is where the fibers turn into yarn and yarn into fabric.

Now the yarn is ready to get some color. Loro Piana uses special dye formulations for its garments.

Real garments, a process often performed by cutting-edge knitting machines, are finally ready to be built. When the clothes are finished, they are examined by expert eyes. Finally, they are packaged for distribution to Loro Piana’s 178 physical stores, e-commerce channels and various retail partners.

The time between collecting the inner wool of a baby goat and putting a sweater on the store shelf is up to two years. Officials at Loro Piana estimate that more than a hundred hands could be involved in creating a garment. A Loro Piana cashmere sweater typically starts at $1,000, with more intricate designs costing between $2,000 and $3,000. And goats grow their hair again.