Loro Piana shows its men’s and women’s collections mixed on mannequins. Today, as we walked through the crowd of strikingly styled and hat-heavy (especially in womenswear) static ensembles, we heard how these collections focused on linen, and saw some interesting fabrications. It turns out that when you mix linen with cashmere in an undyed cable-knit cardigan, the handfeel retains more of the meaty hardness of the animal’s vegetal softness. Elsewhere, linen was mixed with Manila hemp – a banana plant – or used in beautiful triple-tied summer raincoats, suitable for both sexes. There were blends of linen and silk, twisted linen and linen floral prints.
The most attractive properties of linen include moisture absorption and breathability. Once you took a breath and instead of trying to absorb the full spectrum of this Loro Piana verse, focused on picking out individual items of clothing – imaginary shopping, really – today’s presentation became more light-hearted. Womenswear highlights included a beautifully finished leather field jacket that would have looked great on washed LP denim and a silk shirt with a vintage martini print. A very impressive embroidered and sheared cashmere jacket in the form of a ribbed lining looked like a beautiful vintage piece.
In menswear, a suede country jacket with a button-up front – inevitably in treated linen – and a linen-silk suit and shirt (I think) with a light herringbone pattern and a peaked collar shirt were among the many nice items. There was a beautiful tweedy-looking linen top jacket and an irregular oat-like mottled pattern: worn over a gray bird’s-eye work vest, crew-neck sweater, tie, shirt and double-pleated flannel trousers, however, it looked more like a 1950s country doctor than a luxury out the 1920s. connoisseur. The styling here was too total and vague.
Beyond a display of fancy new sunglasses styles in Japanese acetate was a room full of bags, including a nubuck-feel bag lined with real cashmere and a smallish drawstring backpack. The most exciting detail was shown between that room and the archive of the Loro Piana printed scarves in the next room: attached to the shoulder of another mannequin was a leather belt whose two buckles were in the corners of one of those silk scarves tied to create an ad hoc style. handbag. That seemed like a pretty interesting way to wear a ‘bag’ that could be renewed every time the customer bought a new scarf.