Fashion firm goes wild for vicuna
IN an unusual marriage between high fashion and the high Andes, an Italian luxury clothing firm has acquired the rights to a vast area of wilderness in Argentina.
The 85 000ha of high-altitude grassland and mountain peaks are valuable to Loro Piana because they are home to 6 000 vicuna, whose golden fleeces provide the super-soft wool the company uses to produce its coats, sweaters and scarves.
The company has bought a 60% share of Sanin SA, an Argentine firm that has the right to shear the wild vicunas for their precious wool, the rarest natural fibre in the world. The animals can be shorn only every two years and yield just 150g of fine wool each.
Business is booming for Loro Piana, whose coats cost up to £12 000 (about R180 000). Sales grew by 13% in 2012 to £540-million and are expected to be similar this year. The biggest markets are Europe and the US.
The company opened its first shop in Hong Kong in 2005 and from there has expanded into mainland China.
Five years ago, Loro Piana bought a 2 000ha reserve in Peru that is now home to 2 000 vicuna, after the population doubled within four years.
The vicuna is a close relative of the llama and alpaca and lives at altitudes of up to 5 400m.
Once regarded as sacred by the Incas, by the 1970s vicuna were on the brink of extinction.
The acquisition of the reserve “will allow us to keep safeguarding the species”, said Sergio Loro Piana, one of two brothers who run the family-owned firm.