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Loro Piana buy record-breaking wool, make 40 ultra-luxery suits
Following their 16th annual Record Bale challenge, sartorial powerhouse Loro Piana reports that they've acquired the world's finest bale of Merino wool: a 10.6-micron beauty produced by breeder Anna Emmerson of the Lindis Ridges farm in New Zealand. But here's why you won't be wearing a suit made from its delicate fibres any time soon…
Every year Loro Piana, the Italian maison behind some of the world's finest cashmere and woollen wares, hold a competition pitting the top bale of Australian Merino wool against its Kiwi counterpart to see which contains the most exquisite material on the basis of weight, length and tenacity. The superior bale of the two is awarded the Challenge Cup, but when the fibres are the finest ever produced – as is the case this year – it's immediately exalted as the World Wool Record Bale. Loro Piana always buy this record bale and hold it in a place of honour, declining to spin it into fabric until an even finer bale of wool is produced. Sorry, sartorial connoisseurs of the world, you'll have to wait to wear this most coveted of materials.
In the meantime, however, discerning dressers can celebrate the occasion by purchasing one of the 40 suits that will be made from the previous titleholder: a 2009 New Zealander bale with an impressively low 10.9 microns. Each sought-after suit will bear a special label documenting its provenance, the year of shearing, and the fibre's finesse. Bragging rights for wearing the only record-setting suit in the room are naturally included.
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