This week kicked off with “Blue Monday,” supposedly the most depressing day of the year.
As a Michelsberg customer, your wardrobe will bring such joy into your life as to make every day a delight, however, if you are shaking your way through a dry January, here is the perfect pick-me-up:
“Loro Piana Friday.”
Yes, the latest Spring / Summer collections from our Italian cloth manufacturing friends in Biella, have just landed.
When it comes to fine threads, they are the premier manufacturer of luxury fabrics in the world, their motto, “quality without compromise.”
Trading wool since the 1800’s, Loro Piana was a family owned business until 2013, when the luxury goods group, LMVH, paid over two billion euros to Pier Luigi and Sergio (now deceased) for an 80% share.
When not skippering their yachts, sliding down the pistes of St Moritz, or dining at the Capri Palace, the Loro Piana brothers would be travelling the world in search of the finest fibres available to humanity – Peru for Vicuna, New Zealand for wool, and Mongolia for cashmere.
With some of their pashminas alone costing over a thousand pounds, it’s a brand worn by the few.
Their obsessive culture of sourcing the finest raw materials and working with the most highly regarded artisans on the planet, creates genuine value, and this, combined with the laws of supply and demand, goes a long way to justifying the price.
Speaking personally, they are one of my very favourite mills, and the fact that five of the six jackets on display in my showroom, are all made up in Loro Piana fabrics, speaks for itself.
They are innovators and masters when it comes to producing exciting new blends and weaves, creating wonderful cloths with a gorgeous feel and texture, but the thing I love most is that their designs always remain elegant.
I am particularly taken with their latest wool, silk and linen blends, and as you can see below, adore the subtle introduction of a contrasting colour as a slub through the weave.
A relaxed summer suit in a Loro Piana fine stretch merino wool, and a classic blazer in their super soft flannel, are probably the current highlights of my wardrobe, but it hasn’t always been plain sailing.
One of my few, and biggest sartorial mistakes, was making a handmade jacket for myself in one of their very expensive 50% silk and 50% cashmere blends; feeling jaunty, I swerved away from my trademark blue and went for a burnt orange / oxide red colour.
I have a fair complexion, and putting it on for the first time, I approached the mirror to reveal a man who looked like he was suffering from jaundice, or, liver failure.
The jacket now hangs dejectedly on a rail in my office – a warning to remain true to myself and always be “the man in the blue suit.”
The latest collections are stylish as ever and their business continues to flourish under the steam of their CEO, a chap from Rome by the name of Fabio d’Angelantonio.
A marketer by trade, he can certainly tell a story, and I’ve enjoyed reading his articles about new stores and an installation in Dubai, that allowed customers to get hands on and feel the raw material and fabrics.
Marketing will always go some way to selling a cloth, but over the years I’ve learnt that a quality cloth is identified by touch alone, and the way a cloth handles.
Whether that’s silky, crisp, dry, soft or lively, each will produce a garment with its own character, be it formal, or, more relaxed.
Loro Piana, for me, carries that spirit of Italian Sprezzatura – a confident, inventive, unique approach to textiles, that produces elegant garments with a twist – the perfect foil for Michelsberg Tailoring.
Combine that with my eye for detail, a genuine passion for service, and a good laugh over a malt whisky, and I think you’ll agree that 2020 is all set to be a belter.
Here’s wishing you all the best for the coming months!