A cloak costs 150,000 yuan. Is the "Luxury Version of Uniqlo" specifically targeting rich girls?
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In the blink of an eye, it's the autumn season when fashionistas can showcase their skills.
The "Maillard" style with brown tones and the "Gray" style with grayish hues have passed. This autumn, a new fashion trend - the "Yardang" style - has emerged on the fashion week runways.
● Loro Piana 2024 Autumn/Winter Collection
Yardang originally refers to a wind-eroded landform in dry areas. The fashion industry once again demonstrates its imagination in coining new terms. The "Yardang" style is defined as a dressing style that mainly features earth tones, supplemented by reddish-brown and natural colors, and prefers the layering of natural fabrics to create a sense of layering.
The "Yardang" style is also a manifestation of the recent shift in the fashion industry's major trend towards old money and minimalism. Under the trickle-down effect, the public's clothing choices are also influenced. The style of clothing has become more practical, low-key, and versatile, with natural and organic fabrics such as cashmere and cotton linen becoming the first choice.
The era of flashy and overly elaborate big-logo designs is over. Behind the popularity of the style that advocates for a natural and low-key look, it is precisely that the public is starting to move away from the once rapid and aggressive narrative and begin to pursue "stability". And those at the top who are invisible are more envied in an unstable era due to their strong stability.
Loro Piana, an extremely niche Italian top cashmere brand under the LVMH Group, has entered the public eye due to its attribute of serving top billionaires and is particularly sought after.
When LVMH announced its annual results in 2023, the group chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault particularly mentioned, "In my opinion, the growth rate of Loro Piana is somewhat too high now", and even wanted to put the brakes on the brand's development.
The current Loro Piana CEO Damien Bertrand is even dissatisfied with Loro Piana becoming a synonym for the quiet luxury style, saying that what we represent goes beyond "quiet luxury".
Loro Piana, known as the Rolls-Royce of cashmere and the Uniqlo of billionaires, what kind of top luxury product is it?
Top Billionaires Don't Need Logos
Before being noticed by social media, Loro Piana has been existing in a quiet and deep manner among top wealthy families.
Whenever the LVMH Group chairman Bernard Arnault goes on vacation to Portofino, Italy, he would go to the local Loro Piana store to pick up some polo shirts and sweaters. His eldest son Antoine recalled that this is one of the few products in his father's closet that does not belong to the LVMH Group.
In 2013, Loro Pina was acquired by the LVMH Group for 2 billion euros. Natalia Vodianova, the daughter-in-law of the LVMH Group, also shot a video with the theme of "Loro Piana girl" when she was interviewed by VOUGE.
● Screenshot of the "Loro Piana girl" video
It can be seen that the hearts of those who control the luxury goods empire have long admired Loro Piana.
Charlene, the Princess of Monaco, who topped the list of the global royal family's clothing expenses with 150,000 euros in 2019 as calculated by the foreign website UFO No More (a website that specializes in reporting royal fashion), is a loyal fan of Loro Piana. Almost all of her outfits for formal official occasions are from Loro Piana.
● Princess Charlene wearing a Loro Piana suit to attend the official opening ceremony of the new shelter of the Monaco Animal Protection Association
Recently, when Prince Harry and his wife Meghan visited Colombia, the linen blazer that Meghan wore on the street is also from Loro Piana.
● Meghan wearing a Loro Piana coat for the visit
Another unexpected top political figure - Vladimir Putin also loves to wear Loro Piana. It has been found that he wore Loro Piana from head to toe in various occasions such as giving speeches and even doing home exercises.
● Putin's Loro Piana outfit demonstration
Loro Piana has been worn by so many top billionaires, but the reason why it received little attention before is that the clothes look so "ordinary", without logos and any "luxury" recognition.
In a video解读 Loro Piana by the fashion blogger @Fashion Medusa, a classic joke in the fashion circle is mentioned: A rich girl wearing Loro Piana is on a date with a financial man wearing Burberry. The man looks at the girl's clothes and says, "Girls should wear something better. I'll take you to Max Mara to buy a decent one later."
The low-key luxury of Loro Piana is often misunderstood by those who don't understand it, but this sense of superiority that is hidden in the market is precisely what Loro Piana wants to create for the rich.
American writer Paul Fussell once pointed out in his book "Class: A Guide through the American Status System", which is regarded as a must-read for the middle class, that on the clothing of the middle class and the upper-middle class, words are replaced by trademarks or emblems, such as a crocodile. Further up, you will find that all kinds of marks disappear.
In the hit American TV series "Succession", which has made the quiet luxury style popular globally, the character Kendall Roy is styled with a lot of Loro Piana. Jeremy Strong, the actor who plays Kendall, said in an interview with GQ, "For Kendall, Loro Piana represents the highest level of luxury and comfort, the rarest level, that kind of 'If you know, you know' feeling."
● Kendall Roy wearing a Loro Piana Savile cashmere blend coat in the ninth episode of the fourth season of "Succession".
"Money talks, Wealth whispers" is the best annotation for Loro Piana. Celebrity designers who wear clothing with personal characteristics and people who wear luxury goods with logos hope that others will recognize their class through clothing language, while the rich who wear Loro Piana do not need to tell others any information through clothing.
To draw an analogy in the tech circle, it's like Steve Jobs wearing a semi-permanent black turtleneck sweater and Lei Jun wearing jeans.
Those from old money families who have seen and used many good things since childhood do not identify the quality through logos and overly distinct styles. The value of Loro Piana is that only those who can afford to buy it can recognize it.
In China, the representative figure is Xiaohui Zhang. She once wrote an article describing wearing Loro Piana as a lifetime thing, and it is a brand that parents, children, and grandchildren can shop together and wear for two or three generations.
Xiaohui Zhang used to prepare a complete set of Loro Piana cashmere sweaters, thin cashmere jackets with down-filled sleeveless zipper vests, wool hats, gloves, and scarves for her father every year for the winter. Even after her father passed away, she frantically asked Loro Piana stores around the world to help her find a mink hat of the same S size as her father's.
The truly experienced Xiaohui Zhang said, "After wearing a Loro Piana hat, it's almost impossible to wear others. The tightness and height are just right, and it doesn't hurt the head. Moreover, the cashmere, leather, and silk ribbons rolled on the hat are really beautiful."
A Minority Carnival in the Secretive Rich Circle
The price of Loro Piana is also at the top luxury level.
A ordinary cashmere Polo shirt costs more than 15,000 yuan, and cashmere coat products cost more than 100,000 yuan. Even the entry-level white-bottom casual boat shoes cost 7,900 yuan. And the more precious vicuña fabric is even more expensive, a vicuña cape costs up to 200,000 yuan.
● The current price on the Loro Piana China official mini-program
The expensive price comes from the fact that Loro Piana always uses only the top and rare materials and rigorous craftsmanship to make clothes.
The Loro Piana family has been engaged in the wool trade in Trivero, a woolen material town in northern Italy since the 19th century. In 1924, Pietro Loro Piana founded the brand of the same name.
Initially, Loro Piana only searched for the top fabrics in the world to supply to various luxury brands, such as Giorgio Armani, Valentino, Brioni, etc., which are all its clients.
The vicuña, baby cashmere and other top natural materials are what Loro Piana is most talked about.
The vicuña fiber, which was praised by the ancient Incas as the "Fiber of the Gods", was originally a material that only the king could use.
The vicuña lives in the Andes Plateau at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters. The harsh natural environment of alternating extreme heat and cold forces the vicuña to grow a golden-yellow fluff with an average diameter of only 12.5 microns. This fiber is not only very lightweight but also has an extremely superior temperature regulation property.
Only about 200 grams of fiber can be produced from one vicuña, and the usable fiber after carding is no more than 120 grams. It takes 6 vicuñas to make a sweater and 35 vicuñas to make a coat. Due to its extreme rarity, it is hailed as the ultimate symbol of luxury.
In the last century, the vicuña was almost driven to extinction due to the high value of its fur and the prevalence of poachers. Until now, there are very few suppliers who can obtain vicuña fiber.
Pascaline Wilhelm, the fashion director of Première Vision, a Paris textile and fabric exhibition, said, "Vicuña is considered the finest and most luxurious of these fibers. 100% vicuña is extremely rare and therefore very expensive."
The ultimate fabric also makes Loro Piana's clothing impossible to identify just by looking at photos. One needs to really go into reality, use the eyes to see the delicate golden luster of the vicuña fiber, and reach out to touch the smooth and cloud-like plush to truly understand the charm of Loro Piana.
Loro Piana signed an agreement applicable to the entire supply chain with the Peruvian government and the Andean community in 1994 to regulate the collection of vicuña fiber, and established a private nature reserve in 2008. Thus, Loro Piana has become the world's largest supplier of vicuña fiber.
All along, Loro Piana's brand concept is to serve the people at the top of the pyramid with the top materials and craftsmanship. Sergio Loro Piana, the former vice president, once mentioned in an interview, "These products are not the needs of the Boston firefighters (even if you give him a cashmere coat, he won't wear it); but my needs, the needs of my customers."
In addition to making clothes, Loro Piana also builds club activities such as equestrian, classic car, and sailing around the lifestyle of serving top billionaires to break into the social circles of VIP customers.
For example, Loro Piana has a dedicated interior design customization business line. From mountain villas to seaside cabins, and even super yachts, Loro Piana offers more than 600 kinds of fabrics and furniture designed for various residences.
● Interior design created by Loro Piana
Pier Luigi Loro Piana is an adventurous sailor. In 2008, he founded the first large-scale sailing race "Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta" in his own name.
Inspired by sailing and yachts, Loro Piana launched the classic white-bottom shoes. Because people who board the boat need to wear white-bottom shoes so as not to leave marks on the solid wood deck.
Loro Piana is also a long-term supporter of