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2024 marks the 100th anniversary of Loro Piana, a Maison founded on innovation, elegance, and the finest natural fibres. Combining technical expertise with the highest-quality materials, Loro Piana pieces are defined by a rich textural feel and excellent performance. This passion for quality and discrete style has resulted in timeless and discerning icons, made as elegant as they are practical.
The theme of the 2024 Knit Design Award, ‘Fast Forward Heritage,' aims to explore how Loro Piana’s heritage will translate in the next 100 years, guided by technical expertise, savoir-faire, and tradition.
Create a future icon – the piece that each participating school present must be designed up to the standard of a Loro Piana icon with rich tactile quality and functionality. It should also be timeless and relevant to future generations.
Loro Piana is a story of heritage, elegance, and savoir-faire. The Maison pioneered the sourcing of the world’s most desirable natural fibres, transforming them into exceptional fabrics and garments. Reimagine how tradition and craftmanship can be combined with technical innovation and excellent performance to create a piece that will last for the next 100 years.
Loro Piana is a story of heritage, elegance, and savoir-faire. The Maison pioneered the sourcing of the world’s most desirable natural fibres, transforming them into exceptional fabrics and garments. Reimagine how tradition and craftmanship can be combined with technical innovation and excellent performance to create a piece that will last for the next 100 years.
Approach colours with responsibility. Define the colour palette, experiment with natural hues, with dying and printing techniques, or create moulinés and tweeds.
Approach colours with responsibility. Define the colour palette, experiment with natural hues, with dying and printing techniques, or create moulinés and tweeds.
Discover the next unique hand feel. Touch is a way to connect and Loro Piana fibres and yarns are exquisitely soft. Experiment how these can be used on their own or find new ways of combining them, keeping in mind the importance of the Touch.
Discover the next unique hand feel. Touch is a way to connect and Loro Piana fibres and yarns are exquisitely soft. Experiment how these can be used on their own or find new ways of combining them, keeping in mind the importance of the Touch.
Alexander Fury is an award-winning fashion journalist, author, critic and curator. He is Fashion Features Director of AnOther magazine, and Men's Critic of the Financial Times newspaper. Based in London, he has written 10 books on fashion, and has curated a number of exhibitions internationally.
Creative director of the Sozzani Foundation. She collaborates with many educational institutions and serves on several boards working and creating awareness for a more responsible planet. She is part of the advisory board of the Circular Fashion Summit, in support of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
To date, she is a Creative advisor for CNCC (Conde Nast Commercial Creative) dealing with the conception and proposition of multi-platform projects for the Condé Nast Italia brands. She founded Vogue Talents with Franca Sozzani in 2009. Vogue Talents has been a worldwide project and network supporting independent creative talent.
In collaboration with Altaroma, she has curated since 2005 the Who is on Next? competition in support of Made in Italy. She regularly attends as a judge and consultant in several fashion competitions, including LVMH Prize, the Woolmark Prize, Fashion Trust Arabia, International Talent Support (ITS), and many others. Since September 2018, she has been the International Brand Ambassador of Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana in support of the new generation of designers. She is also part of Camera Fashion Trust founded in 2018 in support of made in Italy designers. In 2019 she launched A New Awareness a project that aims to create more awareness and consciousness in the younger generation.
In May 2021 she received the Positive Change Award from Monte Carlo Fashion Week.
In 2023 she is one of the executive producers of the documentary Junk Armadi Pieni a docu-series of six episodes that sheds a new light on the contemporary impact of the textile industry, through the stories and images of the people and ecosystems which are most affected. Host and co-author is Matteo Ward, entrepreneur and activist, who curated the scientific research of the series, written and directed by Olmo Parenti and Matteo Keffer.
Gilles Denis is editor-in-chief of Le Point, France’s leading newsmagazine. Previously he has been editor-in-chief of Les Echos Week End, Les Echos Série limitée and started his career in journalism at Le Figaro Magazine, after his degrees in history and political sciences.
Anders Christian Madsen is a fashion critic and creative consultant. With an expertise in narratives, branding and identity, his clients count the leading fashion houses and beauty brands of the industry. He served as Fashion Critic for British Vogue from 2017 to 2024 under the editorship of Edward Enninful with whom he continues to work. Madsen, who began his career as Fashion Features Director at i-D Magazine, contributes to key international fashion titles and has authored a number of books. Raised in Denmark, he is based in London.
Beka Gvishiani, 33, was born and is based in Tbilisi, Georgia. He studied Business Administration and later received a Master’s Degree in Communications. Being obsessed with fashion (especially with fashion magazines), Gvishiani started his career in the georgian fashion industry as a general manager of the brand “Anouki” at the age of 22. In May 2022, he art-directed his first ever Vogue cover in collaboration with Vogue CS and Vogue Ukraine. In 2019, Beka founded the creative agency “Arial Bold” to help local and international fashion brands to develop their contents, shootings, runway shows and e-commerce. In April 2021, he became a member of Forbes “30 under 30” in Georgia. Later in September 2021, Beka created the Instagram blog “Style Not Com” – inspired by the iconic style.com
Anna dello Russo, CREATIVE CONSULTANT, FASHION STYLIST, FORMER FASHION EDITOR FOR VOGUE JAPAN, influencer and VIP. She is an influent fashion journalist, on and off the net, indeed one of the first ones to know how to use it to the point of branding herself.
An eclectic character who lives multiple lives.
Helmut Newton thought of her as a "fashion maniac”.
Anna worked in Condè Nast Italia Group for 18 years, starting as a Fashion Editor for Vogue Italia, and then becoming editor of L’Uomo Vogue from 2000 to 2006. She is now in fashion consultancy for different fashion brands and work with social media playing with her multiple looks.
Well known for her fashion style and taste she is the perfect fashion advocate of excesses.
Originally from Paris, Pauline Dujancourt studied fashion and textile design at École Duperré before moving to London and graduating from Central Saint Martins’ MA Fashion. Passionate with creating her own materials, she taught herself how to hand knit and eventually, specialised in knitwear. Prior to launching her own brand in 2022, Pauline worked for designers in London and New York, including Simone Rocha, Phoebe English, Molly Goddard, and Alexander Wang. As of today, Pauline continues her freelance work with Rejina Pyo, overseeing the knitwear category.
Based in London, my brand aims to redefine womenswear through intricate textile processes like crochet and hand knitting, embodying my contemporary approach to knitwear. Striving for singular and sensual silhouettes, I blend knit elements and woven strips into my own fabrics, infusing movement into the drapes and lightness into the clothes. Moving away from vintage aesthetics, the collections explore the deconstruction and disheveling of knitted pieces in contrast with delicate metallic crochet trims, perceived as “jewellery knits”. In both fashion and life, I enjoy the poetry in contrasts and opposites, seeking for the tension created when beauty is confronted by raw and disturbing elements. Inspired by ancestral ways of domestic making, the collections pay tribute to everyday women knitting for their loved ones. Collaborating with skilled female artisans around the world, my aim is to empower them, nurturing independence that, to me, symbolises freedom. Through both wearing and making my collections, the main intention behind my work is for women to feel their presence and importance in the world.
Alexander Fury
Fashion Features Director
AnOther Magazine and Men’s Critic
Financial Times
Anders Christian Madsen
Fashion Critic and Creative Consultant
Anna Dello Russo
Creative consultant, fashion stylist and former editor for Vogue Japan
Beka Gvishiani
Founder of Stylenotcom
Gilles Denis
Editor In Chief of Le Point
Pauline Dujancourt
Founder & Creative Director of “Pauline Dujancourt” brand
Sara Sozzani Maino
Creative Director Fondazione Sozzani and International New Talent and Brands Ambassador
The iconic CASHMERE 2/28, in pure Top China®cashmere, from remote regions where goats produce the softest duvet, arrives to our factories where the fiber is transformed into precious yarns. The cashmere 2/27, the carded par excellence, is soft and voluminous, perfect for a classic and comfortable knitwear. The autumn winter season is enriched with a new color palette. Distant landscape typical colours come alive and become a ton sur ton melange, delicate pastel shades, brighter in red and purple nuances.
The COARSEHAIR is an iconic yarn, already used for years. It appears slightly hairy with a soft and comfortable touch. It is a cashmere with a higher micron for a perfect combination of elegance and versatility, ideal for casual items and sporty allure.
Multicolour shades made of this fiber enhance its appearance and give to the final product a Shetland sweater characteristic, but with the Loro Piana softness.
SUPERCASHMERE is a very fine yarn, composed of pure cashmere Top China® (selected for its exceptional finesse and length characteristics). Very thin and soft, in 100% combed cashmere recognized for perfect regularity and high strength. Suitable for a classic and very comfortable knitwear.
ROYAL is a worsted yarn, composed of pure Top China® cashmere (selected for the exceptional characteristics of finesse and length) and a 30% of silk in intimate mix that gives to this classic yarn shine and slipperiness properties without equal. Very thin and soft: it's suitable for classic and very comfortable knitwear. Its lightness allows garments to act as a second skin layer.
Classic and timeless combed yarn, Wish, 100% extrafine merino wool, 15.5 microns. An extraordinary fluid yarn, comfortable even in direct contact with the skin. Ideal for 4 seasons knitwear. It is possible to have the Nm 2/60 and Nm 2/80 titles with the RWS certification to prove certified sheep usage, specific animal welfare and quality of life requirements and best practices in land management. The wool is tracked along the entire production process.
Cashmere meets mohair in a unique precious yarn. The raw materials are expertly combined to create a perfect blend: the softness of cashmere embraces the downy feel of mohair, for a tactile, delicate touch. This yarn is ideal for enveloping knits that are warm and comfortable yet beautifully lightweight.
Sopravisso wool comes from an Italian breed of sheep native to the village of Visso, in the Sibillini Mountains. This ancient wool is developed in a classic 2/28 yarn that gives the fabric an effortless look and a springy hand.
Equilibrio is crafted from fine linen grown in Europe. The unique, precious fibre transforms into a soft yarn with cooling properties. The colours are inspired by nature: from forest green to sun-dried herbs, blossomy pastels and blues inspired by lakes and summer skies.
