The name Loro Piana is synonymous with soft — soft cashmere sweaters, soft suede shoes, soft leather bags. But not just any kind of soft — the softest of the soft. So soft, it can be difficult to put into words the way its fabrics feel.
This week, I took a seat on a plush, white Palm Duet chaise lounge covered in Loro Piana Cashfur — yes, cashfur, an epicurean fabric they developed using cashmere and silk — at the brand’s new “Home for the Holidays” interiors and lifestyle pop-up store in Aspen. The experience was akin what I imagine a polar bear hug would feel like, or sinking into a dollop of whipped cream in a mug of hot chocolate. It was just … really soft.
The chair was made in collaboration with the French designer Raphael Navot, who first fell in love with Loro Piana’s cashfur fabric after using for his own interior projects. The brand also uses a patented gel in its furniture cushions, so that when you sit down, it takes the shape of your body, and when you stand back up again it bounces back to the original position.
“It’s something desirable because it really embraces your body, like the palm of a hand,” said Francesco Pergamo, who has worked for the company for almost 20 years, and was appointed director of Loro Piana Interiors in 2019. He was talking about the chair’s inviting texture, but also its organic curved shape, which allows for two people to snuggle up close — hence the name.
Of course, it makes sense that a brand (and this chair) known for its cozy textiles would find a home in Aspen, “the Paris of Colorado” as a friend described it, where a number of other brands, from Gabriela Hearst to Kith, have also set up shop for the winter. The first Loro Piana Aspen store opened in 1999, but the special “Home for the Holidays” pop-up, which stands just a few blocks away, is open through December 21.
In addition to thick, warm scarves, gloves, and ski balaclavas, customers can also shop the Loro Piana Interiors Collection at the pop-up, which includes furniture like the Palm Duet chaise, as well as lamps, pillows, blankets, candles, and more to make your home (or homes, plural) as plush as possible. This marks the first time that these interior items are available for purchase by the general public. Well, anyone out there looking to spend a lot of money on furniture. Like most luxurious things, the Palm Duet chaise, for example, is “price upon request.”
Previously, Loro Piana’s interiors business was reserved for private commissions only, with interior designers, architects, and decorators requesting the brand’s textiles for their client’s Italian villas, but also their cars, boats, and private jets — if that tells you anything more about the caliber of customer they tend to attract.
“They started creating fabrics that were completely unexpected to be used in the interiors world,” said Pergamo. A cashmere couch? On a boat? Sure, Loro Piana can make that happen for you.
One of the first items Loro Piana ever produced was actually a throw blanket. (The brand, founded in Italy in 1924, is almost 100 years old.) “Everything starts from the fabric and the textile tradition, and we have tried to identify projects in which this textile can be magnified, and taken to the maximum level,” Pergamo explained.
True to Loro Piana fashion, it’s the details that make its interiors collection extra special. “The fabric is tailored to each piece of furniture as if it were a made-to-measure suit,” Pergamo explained, running his hands along a chair’s minimal seams. After a long day of traveling, my bottom was very impressed.
