Loro Piana Introduces Royal Lightness After Two Years of Textile Research

Loro Piana is bringing a new proprietary textile proposition to market with Royal Lightness, a trademarked yarn and fabric developed over two years inside the house’s Piedmont facilities.

The Loro Piana Royal Lightness campaign.

After an extended research phase, the Italian luxury brand is unveiling Loro Piana Royal Lightness as both a yarn and a fabric, positioning it alongside established signatures such as The Gift of Kings. The development was carried out by the company’s in-house team at its sites in Roccapietra and Quarona, Italy.

As a yarn, Royal Lightness blends Mulberry silk and merino wool. Loro Piana describes the result as exceptionally fine and delicate, stating that the yarn is nearly impossible to knit without specialist expertise because it demands extreme precision, skill, and know-how to prevent thread breakage.

The silk component is Mulberry silk, also referenced by the brand as Royal Silk, measured at 21 deniers. The merino wool is sourced from Australia and New Zealand and measured at 13.5 microns. Loro Piana notes that only 0.05 percent of global annual merino wool production falls within the 13.0 to 13.8 micron range. The fibers are sealed with a special finish intended to enhance delicacy and luminosity, and the brand’s artisans comb and spin the materials before twisting two strands together in a controlled manner to amplify the intrinsic characteristics of each fiber.

As a fabric, Royal Lightness combines Mulberry silk with cashmere and is presented as a double-sided material weighing 35 grams per meter. It pairs 21-denier organzino silk with long-fiber 15-micron cashmere. Loro Piana explains that the silk thread is wrapped around the cashmere to deliver luster, a subtle sheen, and the strength required for weaving. In the final stages, the woven fabric is carefully tumbled to create a fluffy, raised pile associated with the house’s finish, then brushed, raised, and shaved to shape depth, direction, and a distinctive light-reflecting effect. The last phase is fell stitching, performed by hand with needle and thread, to secure a smooth result on both the outer and inner sides of the garment.

To frame the launch, Loro Piana is rolling out a dedicated digital and print campaign centered on the concept of lightness. One visual presents a fluid, deconstructed coat held by its shawl collar with a single finger. Another shows fine yarns running across like the strings of a musical instrument, extending the idea of weightlessness through imagery. The campaign includes captions describing the features of Royal Lightness and references a dedicated label intended to certify its uniqueness. Loro Piana also connects the campaign’s approach to its archival communications from the 1990s and to past initiatives focused on dark Merino Pecora Nera wool, the White Sole shoe, and the Record Bale Award.

The Royal Lightness narrative sits inside the brand’s longer-running sourcing and research culture, spanning vicuña from Peru, cashmere from Mongolia, and rare wools from New Zealand and Australia, a trajectory the company links to the textile expertise and commitment of Pier Luigi Loro Piana. The brand established the annual Record Bale Award in 1997 to advance the pursuit of finer merino fibers, and in 2008 it established the Franco Loro Piana Reserve in Peru’s Lucana area, which the company says contributed to helping protect vicuñas from extinction.

Loro Piana traces its origins to early 19th-century textile trading in Trivero in northern Italy. Pietro Loro Piana founded the company as a wool mill in 1924 in Quarona. In the mid-1940s, Franco Loro Piana began exporting precious textiles outside Italy, a direction expanded by his sons Sergio and Pier Luigi in the 1970s as the firm grew and moved into luxury retail. Sergio Loro Piana died in 2013 aged 65, and Maria Luisa Loro Piana and Pier Luigi Loro Piana remain on the board.

The launch also arrives against a corporate backdrop in which the relationship between LVMH and Loro Piana has tightened further. LVMH confirmed a partial buyout of shares held by the Loro Piana family in 2025, increasing its stake to 94 percent from 85 percent through the acquisition of an additional 9 percent for 1 billion euros via a call option exercised under the terms of the original 2013 agreement. Following the operation, the brand is valued at 11 billion euros. Loro Piana is currently led by chief executive officer Frédéric Arnault, who was appointed last year after serving as CEO of LVMH Watches. LVMH does not publish brand-level sales figures, though the value of Loro Piana is understood to have increased fourfold since 2013.