Skira

The Story of the World's Most Luxurious Fabric from Loro Piana

Filed under: Apparel, Books, Men's Style

Baby Cashmere may well be the world's most luxurious fabric. As The Classicist noted when it debuted in 2008 courtesy of Italian luxury label Loro Piana, to make it the company first had to spend several years convincing Mongolian tribesmen to comb the fine underfleece of the Hyrcus goat kid when it is 3-12 months old. Each combing yields no more than 30 grams of the rare, precious and incredibly soft fiber and is only done once in the well-cared for animal's life. It takes the fleece of nineteen kids to make just one Baby Cashmere sweater. Now Loro Piana has documented the painstaking process in a lavish new volume from Skira called Baby Cashmere: The Long Journey of Excellence. Traveling through the remote and unspoiled lands where the goats are raised, the epic journey is revealed in over a hundred vibrant full-color photographs, presented in large-scale format.

Tags: animals, baby cashmere, books, cashmere, coffee table books, fabric, Italian fashion, Italy, Loro Piana, Mongolia, Skira

80 Years of Salvatore Ferragamo

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Apparel, Shoes, Books

Italian publisher Skira is about to release the gorgeous catalog of an exhibition at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art commemorating the eightieth anniversary of design house Ferragamo. Founder Salvatore Ferragamo died in 1960, but his name lives on in the firm which has become "synonymous with shoes that embody wildly creative design, painstaking construction techniques, blissful comfort, and the finest materials" - not to mention over-the-top items such as the $250,000 crocodile trench coat we wrote about the other day.

Salvatore Ferragamo: Evolving Legend 1928-2008 is a "fully illustrated monograph of the legendary Italian purveyor of luxury, this book also serves as a journey through the history of fashion from the 1920s to the present." Mr. Ferragamo made his name creating footwear for the most beautiful movie stars in Hollywood including Marilyn Monroe, Greta Garbo, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Marlene Deitrich, and Audrey Hepburn. The book is filled with a rich collection of photographs, archival material, sketches, and drawings exploring Ferragamo's design process.

Tags: Ferragamo, Italian fashion, ItalianFashion, Salvatore Ferragamo, SalvatoreFerragamo, Shanghai, Skira