Amid the ever-growing crowd popping canapés around Loro Piana’s static and featureless mannequins, this presentation contained a gem. Two gloved administrators stood by a table on which rested the very first sample book of this fabric-made house, from the spring/summer 1926 season. A double-breasted suit in the atrium of Loro Piana’s presentation room (just next to the Corriere Della Sera office) was created from a new remix of the house’s very first run, a subtly striped charcoal wool.
Next to that book lay this season’s equivalent, whose star swatch resembled the kaleidoscopically dotted Donegal with splashes of color, its wool base subtly seasoned with polyamide to give it the lightness and durability that today’s LP customers rightly expect. As always, the house’s design teams have drawn on multiple categories of classicism to shape a collection aimed at highlighting the quality of its ingredients. Silk cashmere brocades, buttons and hatpins were all patterned with the thistle flower that both represents the house and is central to the processing of some of the world’s finest cashmeres.
In menswear, a beautiful cashmere denim work jacket with storage pocket was placed on the mannequin, over a cashmere turtleneck and black cashmere trousers. I loved that Donegal in a shirt under a quilt-lined dark wool ‘fur’ jacket; my Runway coworker loved the same fabric used in his womenswear cousin. There was no shortage of blazers in cashmere, wool or vicuna with soft shoulders and jackets worn under knitwear, both fine and coarse, but always soft. Tucked away in a front room was a collection of nice ski and snow gear with Loro Piana’s many weather-repellent systems applied.
In women’s clothing, pillbox hats were paired with stately, ultra-polite mid-century skirts and jackets. There were some beautiful tuxedo-based evening looks with subtly applied thistle embroidery details. Italy holds the G7 presidency this year, and you could easily see heads of state from each country keen to present this Loro Piana offering as a nod to the pinnacle of global textile craft and production.
