The Biella wool we keep coming back to
The mill sits outside Biella in Piedmont, at the base of the Alps, and it has been in the same family since 1908. It is small - under forty people - and it finishes wool the slow way, using the mountain water that made the region a textile centre in the first place.
We buy a merino from them that runs 17.5 micron, spun and finished in-house. Micron count is the diameter of the fibre; below about 18.5 the wool stops feeling like wool against skin and starts feeling like something else. That is what makes our blazers wearable over a bare arm in September.
We have tested six other suppliers over four years, including two that quoted us 20% under Biella. The samples were fine. None of them came back with the same hand after a third wash, which is the test that matters, because a blazer that softens gracefully over five years is the whole proposition.
So we keep going back. Fabric is the largest single cost in every piece we make, and it is the one line we have never found a defensible way to cut.
