The New Favorite Of Luxury Fashion: Lotus Fiber Clothing

Business news December 7th - last year, a friend from Japan gave a Pier Luigi Loro Piana to a piece of beige cloth.

At that time, the textile tycoon felt that his friend's story was unbelievable: the yarn of this cloth was made by hand and lotus fiber was used.

This cloth looks like a blend of linen and raw silk.

It is

Loro Pia usually wears cashmere products when he is at home in the Piedmont (Piemontese) area at the foot of the Alps.

This jacket is not as warm as cashmere products, but has good air permeability as well as flax. It is not only not particularly wrinkled, but also seems to have a good antifouling function.

Many people will simply enjoy the fun of wearing a new jacket. Loro Pia is not an ordinary person, but a sixth generation descendant of the Italy textile family.

He placed the cloth under the microscope and saw that it was a very unusual form of fiber, covered with holes. According to him, it was like a sponge.

He saw a lotus, a perennial aquatic plant.

People in some parts of Asia regard its powder and white flowers as a sacred thing.

The jacket of Luo Luo Piera comes from the lotus stalks in those plantations around Inle Lake, Burma (Lake Inle).

The use of lotus fiber weaving is a local tradition.

Loro Piana (left) and Sergio

Loro Pia, nicknamed "Pigi", runs Loro Pia's company with his brother.

Sergio Loro Piana (Sergio Loro Piana) has a slender figure and is responsible for promoting the company's products and luxury lifestyle from sailing to ski resorts.

Strong and strong leather season likes to explore everywhere. From inland Australia to the hinterland of Himalaya Range, people can see his figure of wool and cashmere.

Naturally, he also wants to see where the fibers of lotus come from.

In order to fulfill this wish, he went to Burma in February this year.

The United States forbids the import of any goods from Burma ruled by the military, but Italy has no such restrictions.

Textiles from local specialties have become more and more valuable.

"Most of our clothes are made of familiar fabrics such as cotton, linen, silk, wool and artificial fibers," said Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, Professor of textile structure and analysis, Desiree Koslin, New York.

However, the traditional smock of Philippines is made of pineapple fiber, and people in Scandinavia countries extract fibers similar to flax from nettle.

In Japan, the special kimono is made of special soft banana tree fiber for special cultivation.

Some areas even have silk produced from spider webs instead of cocoons.

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The application of traditional fiber extraction technology to mass production is often difficult and costly.

Koslin said banana fibers must be twisted together in a laborious way instead of weaving.

The production of the shawash shawl on the black market is even more disturbing because the endangered Tibetan antelope was killed.

But kollin is keen to develop some plant fibers that can compete with cotton.

Diversification is always a good thing, she said. She also mentioned that nettle can grow anywhere.

In February of this year, Lao pieria launched a four day trip to Burma.

His trip is not just out of curiosity, but also in the hope of finding a new textile.

The lotus jacket he wore led him to believe that the molecular structure of the plant gave it special air permeability and wrinkle resistance.

In addition, Loro Pia company distributes luxurious sportswear made of natural fibers, and shops are distributed from Madison Avenue in New York to Ginza in Ginza, Japan. This kind of fiber fits their product style very well.

Loro Pia's fiber fabric used for lotus.

The lotus jacket may also make Loro Pia's brand of textile innovation more loud.

While competing with low-cost wool and cashmere products from China, the company has also introduced some other super luxurious natural fabrics such as the Luo Ma Mao and the so-called cashmere fabrics.

To make a cashmere sweater, you have to use the cashmere that is combed from 19 little goats.

The llama (camel's next of kin in South America) cuts its hair once every two years.

The price of the sweater and jacket from the range of $2500 to $18 thousand is still quite good.

So, Loro Pia has 139 horse stores in the world.

Loro Pia learned in Burma that 32000 lotus stems were needed for making 1 meter (1.09 yards) lotus fiber cloth.

The time for extracting lotus fiber must be about one day after taking lotus stalks from lake water.

Skilled women will cut the end of a lotus stalk, then pull out the long fibers from the stalk through a twist action, then spin it into a long line, and then wash, dry and other processes, and finally weave it into cloth on a handloom.

The locals use this fiber to make Buddhist robes for Buddhist monks, and sell them to scarcity of Inle Lake tourists. They also decorate their statues with special cloth.

Despite the difficulties, Loro Pia company has registered the "loo Pierre lotus flower" logo, and plans to sell this brand scarf and some 20 jackets before Christmas.

The price of each jacket is about 4000 euros, equivalent to $5600.

The Italian company was not hit by the US ban on the sale of any products from Burma in the United States.

It is not clear when this dress will be listed in the United States.

The United States still maintains trade sanctions against the totalitarian government of Burma, and prohibits any sale of products from Burma in the United States.

Loro Piana said his lawyer believed that if the fiber was first imported to Italy and then made into garments in Italy, the lotus jacket would be expected to obtain sales permission from the US.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said that Burma's timber could be finished in third countries and then sold in the United States.

The same principle also applies to fibers in Burma.

In an e-mail, she wrote that using Burma's fibres to make garments in Italy is enough to show that this commodity is produced in Italy and should not be subject to sanctions.

Loro Pia is making an active effort to import the lotus yarn into Italy and then spin it into a highly mechanized factory in Italy.

At the same time, the company is also testing lotus flower fabric dyeing and modern polishing technology.

Loro Pia said that in the next three years, he hopes to sell 300 lotus jackets every year. He said that in the long run, it may become an interesting business.