Loro Piana rewards the best merino wool in the world
MILAN — The Loro Piana Record Bale event, rewarding the best merino wool in the world, is back here Thursday evening IRL after two years for its 23rd edition.
Loro Piana CEO Damien Bertrand, who joined the company after Christian Dior Couture l last year, said during the dinner held at the Poldi Pezzoli museum in Milan that wool is "not just a gift of nature, it is the hard work of wonderful people, crazy like us at Loro Piana", has he joked, “and their passion and genuine belief in innovation and the power to change things and make them better day by day.”
Bertrand had just returned from a trip to New Zealand and Australia with Vice President Pier Luigi Loro Piana, to whom he attributes the creation of this long-standing collaboration with the wool farmers of these regions.
Related GalleriesThe trip helped him understand the uniqueness of the relationship between Loro Piana and ranchers, "going to the source" and selecting "the best of the best" to ensure fiber traceability, constantly raising the standard year after year. "Going out there and seeing it all with your own eyes gives meaning to our philosophy Loro Piana is the master of fibers. It just makes sense,” he said.
Record Bale "was born out of an obsession to create the best wool in the world", said Bertrand , explaining that traditional fine wool starts at 17 microns. The Record Bale, when it was invented in 1998, reached 13.8 microns “and that was already a miracle. A miracle to produce such fine wool, but also a miracle to be able to weave it. It is so thin that it must be strong and perfect to be woven. The fiber is now 25% finer than that first record ball, reaching 10.6 microns. To put this into context, a human hair is 80 microns.
Through the Record Bale competition, Loro Piana created the Gift of Kings, with all the superfine wool measuring 12 microns. The name is inspired by the Spanish royal family's practice of gifting pairs of merino sheep to other monarchs to honor these relationships. In the second half of the 18th century, the animals were taken to New Zealand and Australia, where the habitat proved ideal.
Bertrand pointed out that "it's not just the relationship but also the vertically integrated manufacturing and the traceability that truly distinguish our exclusive fibers because Loro Piana is a real chain of hands, from the fibers to the final garments.Years of research and unprecedented innovation, dedication and pioneering spirit have enabled the company to achieve this unique value."
Pier Luigi Loro Piana said the initiative "is not to enter the record of the Guinness World [book of], but to be useful”, and recounts how he first traveled to Australia in 1978, where breeders are researchers, as they are in New Zealand.
The prize was awarded this year to the Australian farm Pyrenees Park of Pamela and Robert Sandlant, for the sixth consecutive year, and at Barrie and Yvonne Payne's Visuela Farm in New Zealand, each harvesting a bale whose width...
MILAN — The Loro Piana Record Bale event, rewarding the best merino wool in the world, is back here Thursday evening IRL after two years for its 23rd edition.
Loro Piana CEO Damien Bertrand, who joined the company after Christian Dior Couture l last year, said during the dinner held at the Poldi Pezzoli museum in Milan that wool is "not just a gift of nature, it is the hard work of wonderful people, crazy like us at Loro Piana", has he joked, “and their passion and genuine belief in innovation and the power to change things and make them better day by day.”
Bertrand had just returned from a trip to New Zealand and Australia with Vice President Pier Luigi Loro Piana, to whom he attributes the creation of this long-standing collaboration with the wool farmers of these regions.
Related GalleriesThe trip helped him understand the uniqueness of the relationship between Loro Piana and ranchers, "going to the source" and selecting "the best of the best" to ensure fiber traceability, constantly raising the standard year after year. "Going out there and seeing it all with your own eyes gives meaning to our philosophy Loro Piana is the master of fibers. It just makes sense,” he said.
Record Bale "was born out of an obsession to create the best wool in the world", said Bertrand , explaining that traditional fine wool starts at 17 microns. The Record Bale, when it was invented in 1998, reached 13.8 microns “and that was already a miracle. A miracle to produce such fine wool, but also a miracle to be able to weave it. It is so thin that it must be strong and perfect to be woven. The fiber is now 25% finer than that first record ball, reaching 10.6 microns. To put this into context, a human hair is 80 microns.
Through the Record Bale competition, Loro Piana created the Gift of Kings, with all the superfine wool measuring 12 microns. The name is inspired by the Spanish royal family's practice of gifting pairs of merino sheep to other monarchs to honor these relationships. In the second half of the 18th century, the animals were taken to New Zealand and Australia, where the habitat proved ideal.
Bertrand pointed out that "it's not just the relationship but also the vertically integrated manufacturing and the traceability that truly distinguish our exclusive fibers because Loro Piana is a real chain of hands, from the fibers to the final garments.Years of research and unprecedented innovation, dedication and pioneering spirit have enabled the company to achieve this unique value."
Pier Luigi Loro Piana said the initiative "is not to enter the record of the Guinness World [book of], but to be useful”, and recounts how he first traveled to Australia in 1978, where breeders are researchers, as they are in New Zealand.
The prize was awarded this year to the Australian farm Pyrenees Park of Pamela and Robert Sandlant, for the sixth consecutive year, and at Barrie and Yvonne Payne's Visuela Farm in New Zealand, each harvesting a bale whose width...
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