The Loro Piana commission, what to know before you choose Super 150s.

Loro Piana was founded in 1924 by Pietro Loro Piana, an Italian engineer, in the Sesia valley commune of Quarona, Piedmont. The family textile activity originated in Trivero in the early 19th century and relocated to Valsesia (the Sesia valley) in the second half of the 19th century. The 1924 founding modernized that older Piedmont wool tradition. Sergio and Pier Luigi Loro Piana took over from their father Franco in 1975 and ran the business through the four decades that established the mill as the luxury cloth reference for the bespoke trade.

LVMH acquired 80 percent of the mill in 2013 and increased the stake to 94 percent in a billion euro transaction in 2024. The brand operates under LVMH leadership today. The Quarona mill complex continues to handle the full production cycle, from raw fiber selection through weaving and finishing, on the same site the family has operated for a century. The change in ownership did not change the geography of the operation, the wool sourcing network, or the cloth catalog that defines the mill.

The structural advantage Loro Piana holds over merchant houses is direct ownership of the fiber supply. The mill operates a Peruvian vicuna reserve historically and acquired a stake in an Argentinian vicuna reserve in 2013, and those reserves remain the operational source of the rarest commercial fiber in circulation. Loro Piana is also among the largest commercial cashmere buyers in the world, sourcing baby cashmere from China and Mongolia under direct contract. Cloth that comes off the Quarona looms traces back to fiber the mill controls rather than fiber the mill purchases on the open market; that controls the consistency from book to book.

The Loro Piana name in the cloth trade and the Loro Piana ready to wear brand are the same parent business but different surfaces. The cloth library the bespoke trade commissions through is the mill output; the dedicated mill page on /cloth walks through the bunch library at workroom register.

The Super count system is an industry standard fineness measurement. The number after the word Super refers to the IWTO micron grade the fiber averages; each step finer refines by roughly 0.5 micron. Super 100s sits at roughly 18.5 micron, Super 110s at 18.0, Super 130s at 17.0, Super 150s at 16.0, Super 170s at 15.0, Super 180s at 14.5, Super 200s at 13.5, Super 220s at 12.5, Super 230s at 12.0. The system is a measurement, not a quality ranking; finer cloth presses silkier and reads more visibly under light but costs durability at the upper end of the scale. A Super 200s worsted is not built for daily wear; a Super 150s is.

Loro Piana sits at the top of the worsted suiting range and reaches into fiber categories no other commercial mill carries. The Tasmanian bunch (book 691, moving to book 713) runs at Super 150s on extra long fiber Australian merino at roughly 16 micron average fineness. Sergio and Pier Luigi Loro Piana developed the lighter 2x1 Tasmanian weave through their research leadership beginning in the 1970s. The cloth runs at roughly 250 grams per meter, light enough to carry across two climates on a travel rotation and dense enough to hold shape through structured tailoring. Tasmanian has anchored the year round Loro Piana wardrobe ever since.

Wish Super 170s sits a step finer at roughly 15 micron, with a softer hand than Tasmanian and a drape that reads silkier through the press. Four Seasons Super 130s carries slightly more weight, which makes it the cooler season pick across the foundational LP register. Zelander, on the heavier 10.5 ounce per yard end, sits closer to a structured jacket weight. Pecora Nera, the undyed black sheep bunch, runs at autumn weight and carries a character that pairs with country and country club register more than business.

Beyond the worsted library the mill commissions the rarest fiber categories in the suiting world. Vicuna at roughly 12 micron is the rarest natural fiber commercially woven and sits at the very top of the fineness scale; the South American camelid is shorn only every two years and the reserves the mill controls cap the annual supply. Baby cashmere at roughly 13.5 micron, combed from the underbelly of kid goats, sits a step finer than standard cashmere. Limited bunches with lotus flower fiber and Royal Lightness collections push the technical envelope further each season, and the mill reserves the rarest cuts for committed orders rather than open inventory.

Loro Piana cloth carries a hand and finish that read correctly at the dressier register: the wedding suit that sits in the closet for thirty years, the executive evening rotation, the second or third commission for a client whose wardrobe has moved past entry tier. Tasmanian and Wish run as the foundational year round business choices for the senior executive book. Four Seasons works through the cooler shoulder months. Vicuna and baby cashmere belong to the formal evening register and the rarest occasion register rather than daily wear.

Loro Piana is the wrong choice for a first business commission or a high yardage daily rotation. The cloth rewards intention; it does not reward mileage. A client commissioning the first business suit will get more wardrobe per dollar from Vitale Barberis Canonico Revenge, Perennial, or Holland and Sherry Crispaire at the same construction tier. For the daily executive rotation that lives in a suit five days a week, the workhorse register sits closer to Ermenegildo Zegna Trofeo; the side by side comparison runs through the Zegna boardroom journal piece. Super 200s and Super 220s carry durability tradeoffs at the upper end of the Super count scale that make those bunches inappropriate for daily wear regardless of the mill the cloth comes from; finer fiber means thinner yarn means the cloth wears through at the contact points sooner. The fineness sits in the cloth identity, not the cloth performance.

Three client situations concentrate Loro Piana commissions through Crowned Legacy. The executive about to step into a board seat, where the wardrobe register has to read at the next room rather than the current room. The groom marrying at a destination venue, where the wedding suit will live in photographs for forty years and the cloth has to read correctly under direct light. The connoisseur building a wardrobe tier, where the second and third commissions are the right slot for the Tasmanian and Wish bunches that define the LP register.

Crowned Legacy quotes a standard service range of $1,800 to $3,500 across made to measure commissions; the Loro Piana commission lands at the upper end of that range, typically $2,800 to $3,500. The cloth identity is the primary driver: Tasmanian and Wish at Super 150s and Super 170s commission higher per meter than Vitale Barberis Canonico Perennial or Holland and Sherry Crispaire at the same construction tier. Bunch selection inside the LP library shifts the number inside that band; Pecora Nera and Four Seasons sit lower in the band than Wish Super 170s.

Fully bespoke construction in Loro Piana cloth begins at $5,000 and extends higher with rare fiber selection. Vicuna and baby cashmere are not made to measure commissions and not standard bespoke commissions; the cloth alone reaches the low five figures before construction, and the commission is built around a specific occasion. The standard service range does not cover those tiers and the article does not pretend it does.

Delivery runs 4 to 8 weeks from order on the standard schedule. Rare fiber commissions sometimes extend the window when the bunch has to be reserved through the mill on a specific season; Sam walks the timeline at the consultation rather than after the order is in. The Perfect Fit Guarantee covers the alteration work for the life of every commission, Loro Piana included.

Loro Piana commissions concentrate among three named segments. The first is the executive about to step into a board seat. Senior counsel moving from partner to chair, founders heading into a public board appointment, regional presidents moving toward the C suite. The wardrobe brief is the same in each case: the cloth has to read correctly in the room the client is moving toward. Tasmanian and Wish carry the business rotation for that brief naturally, and the LP commission usually rolls into a multi piece executive wardrobe plan rather than a single garment order.

The second is the groom marrying at a destination venue where the wedding suit will live in photograph register for decades. Loro Piana carries the harvest wedding circuit through the Napa and Sonoma September and October months, where Tasmanian and Wish sit cleanly through both the afternoon ceremony and the evening reception. Auberge du Soleil is the venue the LP wedding commission lands at most often, with the late afternoon light and the Italian register of the room calling for the softer drape of the Tasmanian or Wish bunch. The commission usually runs at the bespoke tier for the groom and made to measure for the wedding party in coordinated cloth across the same bunch family.

The third is the connoisseur building a wardrobe tier. A client who already owns three or four working business commissions and is moving toward the dressier register: the evening rotation, the rare fiber commission, the cloth identity that signals a specific kind of wardrobe maturity. Loro Piana is the natural slot for the second and third commissions in that progression. The international executive book ( Manhattan, London, Hong Kong professional networks) recognizes the mill on sight and reads the cloth correctly in the rooms those careers keep.