Our philosophy is always to search for the best quality. That is something our father taught us. It's one way to be different from your competitors. You can try to be cheaper, or you can try to be better.
Once you start compromising, once you start trying to keep cost lower, this is not luxury. Luxury is wanting the best and using the best materials with which to do that.
Loro Piana is all about seeking quality materials.
The Loro Piana man is a very active one: he works hard, and when he has time off, being close to nature is important to him.
So many young designers are focused on styling rather than materials now. We have to change that.
The life of a business is not like a football team! We are not taking part in an Italy-France game or against Germany.
The best sheep breeders are in Australia and New Zealand.
You don't have to make things which are just expensive.
We check everything to make sure it is pure and of the highest quality. There is good wine and bad wine; we buy only the good wine.
A vicuna alive is worth more than one dead. Now it is like a goldmine.
The Australians have a scientific approach and a very strong professionalism, a passion to do the best. Theirs is the best wool. And Loro Piana wants the best.
Our customers are quality maniacs.
I don't think LVMH will want to significantly change the strategy of Loro Piana, and I don't think that they would have bought it otherwise.
Quality will save our company.
When we started, there was lots of formalwear made with quality fabrics, but Loro Piana's innovation was to use these in casualwear, too.
I never expect business to be easy.
My family have been wool merchants since the 19th century. My first job, aged 18, was buying fabric from my father to produce and sell ties. But I was also at university in Milan.
We are very far from our potential, but you aren't going to see 500 stores; that wouldn't be consistent with the exclusivity of our brand. You also aren't going to see a Loro Piana perfume, glasses, or watches, because we are concentrating on our core business.
My father passed me the concept that vicuna was something very special, very expensive. So it was a question of pride. I didn't want anybody else in the world to be touching vicuna before us.
My brother and I became convinced that to buy and sell legally sheared vicuna hair was the only way to help the vicuna increase in numbers. If the animal becomes useful to society, people will take care of the animal; if it's not useful, they will not take care.
