A city once peppered with dank red-brick factory buildings, blackened by coal vapours, and with unremitting rainfall, Manchester was once home to 108 cotton mills, thus garnering the moniker of Cottonopolis. At its peak in 1912, it produced 8 billion yards of cloth. However, in 1920 Mahatma Gandhi led a boycott in India of British textiles, as part of his campaign for Indian independence, thus encouraging people to use home-spun and home-woven cloth. Then, in 1933, Japan introduced 24-hour cotton production – a yardstick of the burgeoning cheap textile phenomenon in the Far East during the interwar years. Finally, World War II’s destruction forced clothing rationing, subsequently igniting the appetite for synthetic and artificial cloth in the ‘50s that rang the death knell for the British cotton industry.
Like Britain, Italy, which was in even deeper economic turmoil, was a recipient of the United States’ post-war international aid, dubbed the Marshall Plan. Yet, unlike Britain, the loan induced an astounding rebound for Italian textiles, in particular liberating and maintaining the standing of Northern Italy’s historic family-owned factories in the global market.
Born in 1930 in Biella, to a family whose fine wool textile factory was integral to the millwheel based powers of the town, which has been called the Wool Capital of the World, at the age of 20 Nino Cerutti inherited the family fiefdom, founded in 1881. He devised and oversaw an acute blend of old-world traditions with the latest innovations, technology and sustainability measures, epitomising the ethos of the town’s 1,800 family-owned unique virile factories. In addition to Cerruti’s unparalleled design legacy, notably his soft tailoring style cachet, it is the Lanificio Fratelli Cerruti wool mill that symbolises the Cerruti name and its place in Italy’s mesmerising post-war reconstruction fashion prosperity.
In 2022, Lanificio Cerruti entered into a new era, though not one that would erase family-owned connotations or deflect its all-embracing textile development; it was purchased by PIACENZA 1733 (previously Piacenza Cashmere). While also spinning wool, alpaca, camel hair and the exalted vicuña, the fourteen generation old family run company is the bona fide cashmere producer that, alongside revered mills such as Loro Piana, is taking stringent steps to safeguard and retain responsible cashmere – a coveted fabric that stems from ancient communities in Central Asia.
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Cashmere is a rare, timeless and precious fibre obtained exclusively from the duvet of Capra Hircus, or cashmere goats. Nomadic groups herd the hardy goats, especially in the Gobi Desert, and it is the inhospitable climate in the brushlands that ultimately nurtures the fibre, through the goats’ resilient traits developed to survive such hostility, where temperatures can range from 45C to -40C below zero. In this subarctic environment, in order to insulate their body, they develop a thick undercoat made up of thousands of very fine and supremely soft fibres, which are hidden under the longer and rougher coat that is visible from the outside. This soft handle is the source of cashmere; in harmony with nature’s cycles, herders harvest the fibre in the spring. However, in order to make one cashmere sweater, it takes cashmere fibre from 4-8 cashmere goats, truthfully exemplifying the fabric’s undeniable exclusivity.
Considering the onslaught of cheap textiles from the Far East, one would have feared for their fortunes. But, in fact, the stalwart mills, embodying true Italian artisanal quality, have inundated Japan, Korea and China with their line of fabrics. However, it is at the very root of this fabled fibre that it is in great danger. With Mongolia’s 2°C increase in temperature and decline in rainfall over the past 70 years, the thermal efforts of the goats that grow the thick undercoat are reduced. Furthermore, an unsustainable demand for cashmere, with much of the quality fibre being transported to China to be blended with undesirable fabrics, filters back to the farmers, who consequently over-enlarge their herds, leading in turn to overgrazing and thus causing alarming degradation of the biodiversity.
As eluded to, distinguished luxury fashion brands such as Loro Piana and Brunello Cucinelli have introduced strong incentives to repel such concerning issues. Like other revered luxury brands, these interventions are endearingly welcomed by AK MC which contains a superior collection made from the very best cashmere wool.
