Loro Piana Unveils State-of-the-Art Knitwear Complex

MILAN — Loro Piana is strengthening its commitment to superior craftsmanship.

The luxury brand, which will present its spring 2027 collection on Friday, has inaugurated a new knitwear complex in Ghemme, in Italy’s Piedmont region, a state-of-the-art facility that fully integrates the majority of the stages of manufacturing fully fashioned knitwear within a single plant. Covering more than 86,000 square feet, Loro Piana Ghemme marks the house’s first new manufacturing plant construction since the 1990s.

The new plant points to knitwear as a leading category for the brand. Loro Piana manages the majority of stages and steps of the process in-house, allowing the exchange of information, ideas and expertise throughout the entire production chain.

In Ghemme, Loro Piana will develop yarns crafted from baby cashmere, vicuña, cashmere and ultra-fine merino wools used for the trademarked The Gift of Kings, and the Loro Piana Royal Lightness yarn.

In February, after two years of extensive research, the luxury brand trademarked the Loro Piana Royal Lightness yarn, a mix of silk and merino wool, and a fabric, a blend of silk and cashmere. The merino wool measures 13.5 microns and is sourced from Australia and New Zealand. The merino wool is blended with Mulberry silk, also known as Royal Silk, the finest in the world, measuring a mere 21 deniers.

Loro Piana said the yarn is so fine and delicate that it is “nearly impossible to knit” without the company’s expertise as it requires “extreme precision, skill and know-how to prevent breaking the threads.”

Loro Piana has built longstanding relationships with herders committed to sourcing the rarest and finest raw materials around the world, sourcing vicuña from Peru, cashmere from Mongolia, and the finest, rarest wools from New Zealand and Australia — a research fueled over the years by Pier Luigi Loro Piana, whose textile expertise, passion and commitment is second to none.

Loro Piana in 1997 established the annual Record Bale Award, driving his and the brand’s quest for increasingly finer merino wool fibers every year. The company established the Franco Loro Piana Reserve in the Lucana area in Peru in 2008 and has significantly contributed to saving vicuñas from extinction.

The Loro Piana family began trading wool and fine textiles at the beginning of the 19th century in Trivero, in northern Italy. Pietro Loro Piana founded the company as a wool mill in 1924 in the country’s Quarona. In the mid-1940s, Franco Loro Piana started exporting precious textiles outside of Italy, an activity further developed by his sons Sergio and Pier Luigi in the 1970s, when they started helming the firm and expanding into luxury retail operations. Sergio died in 2013, aged 65, and that year, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton bought an 80 percent stake in Loro Piana for 2 billion euros. It gradually increased it holding, most recently last January by paying 1 billion euros for a 9 percent interest, raising its stake to 94 percent. Sergio’s wife, Maria Luisa, and Pier Luigi Loro Piana continue to serve as members of the board of directors.

The brand is helmed by Frédéric Arnault, who was named chief executive officer last year, moving on from his role as CEO of LVMH Watches.

The unveiling of the Ghemme plant further underscores Loro Piana’s investments in its supply chain over the years and takes place after the company last April welcomed the early conclusion of the judicial administration over labor practices. At the time, Arnault said Loro Piana is “firmly committed to the highest level of compliance and ethical conduct across our supply chain.”

Another sign of the group’s focus on leveraging highly skilled artisans is that the Accademia dei Mestieri, founded in in 2015 to protect Loro Piana’s crafting heritage across 59 unique professions, sees a new chapter this year with the Accademia dei Mestieri Knitwear Métiers School relocating to a dedicated building at Loro Piana Ghemme.

Through multifaceted and extensive programs, the Accademia dei Mestieri will train the artisans of tomorrow, and in collaboration with LVMH’s Métiers d’Excellence, the academy operates across five tailored schools: Textiles Métiers School, Knitwear Métiers School, Ready-to-wear Métiers School, Leather Goods Métiers School and Shoes Métiers School.

This initiative relies on three pillars. The first is Preserve savoir-faire and facilitate transmission of skills through the Loro Piana Métiers Library, comprising about 30 technical manuals in paper and digital formats, along with 47 Augmented Reality Training Manuals in five departments featuring more than 600 multimedia items and 400-plus video tutorials.

The second pillar, Nurture savoir-faire, concentrates on activities designed to solidify technical and artisanal skills, with the internal Métiers School ensuring the transmission of skills. Training is conducted by both external and internal teachers.

As part of the knitwear training programs the ME (Métiers d’Excellence) LVMH Knitwear Making-up School offers a six-month path focused on assembling the various parts of a knitwear garment. The Métiers School programs for leather goods is located in Tuscany near Florence and focus on enhancing and updating advanced skills while supporting junior talents.

It comprises the Shoes School focusing on the phases of shoe production and featuring a specialized program in stitching in partnership with Accademia Holding Moda; the Textile métiers programs provide training courses in techniques such as the Mending School, while the Ready-to-Wear School in partnership with Istituto Secoli School aims to nurture internal competences in ready-to-wear prototyping.

The third pillar, Share savoir-faire, enriches school curricula with the specific needs of the working world. The program “Excellent!,” part of LVMH’s Métiers d’Excellence, targets middle and high school students and includes guidance and educational workshops on craftsmanship. Loro Piana engages about 600 students from various programs each year through workshops and factory visits.

At the Loro Piana Ghemme factory, the production process of fully fashioned knitwear is intricate, involving weaving the single components — front, back, sleeves, borders and collar — on a flat knitting machine. The pieces are then linked and hand-stitched together, enabling the creation of complex garments.

Linking is an exclusive, meticulous stitching technique used in knitwear, where individual components of the garment are joined stitch by stitch. A hallmark of Loro Piana’s knitwear is the nearly invisible side seam, achieved through perfect linking, ensuring a flawless finish.

Ironing is another delicate procedure to protect softness and texture and performed just before the final inspection, which is entirely manual.