A €25k Loro Piana Vicuna coat: Why is it so expensive?
When it comes to luxury knitwear, cashmere usually gets the spotlight. But unbeknownst to many, the vicuna wool takes the indisputable ‘best in class’ title when it comes to luxurious winter fabrics. Read below to discover this Andean top-tier fibre.
25,200 euros for a long, double face vicuna coat. The Arvel Coat.
We visited several Parisian luxury boutiques during our latest Paris Market Consulting to analyse their brand and retail proposal. The Loro Piana store, in rue du Faubourg St Honoré, holds the highest priced items and rarest fibres, from all the luxury brands in the Parisian shopping avenue. Including the Arvel Coat.
Loro Piana’s Arvel Coat
Described on the brand website as a “Long, double-faced coat made from vicuña — the rarest, finest animal fiber in the world. Warm and comfortable, this unlined style is enhanced by hand-finished invisible seams. Its matching belt accentuates the figure and features a metal-and-leather buckle.”
Other items such as the Micro Cables dress in Bolivian vicuna, with a delicate an intertwined weaved-texture retail at €8200.
Micro Cables dress
And the round neck Peruvian vicuna sweater at €3800 in brown and black.
And what exactly justifies the price of this uncomplicated casual wear garments? The vicunas fleece it’s the softest and finest in the world as the animal lives in the absolute wild in the Andes, confronted to extreme climatic variations.
Scarcity is the main reason for its high pricing. Because a vicuna will only produce about 0.5 kg of wool a year, gathering it requires a certain process. The animal can only be shorn every three years, and has to be caught from the wild. Prices for vicuña fabrics can range from US$1,800 to US$3,000 per yard, mostly sourced from Peru and Bolivia.
Brands such as Loro Piana, Brunello Cucinelli and Max Mara present vicuna-wool garments as their highest priced items, as the wool is incredibly popular due to its warmth.
Its properties come from the tiny scales on the hollow, air-filled fibres, which causes them to interlock and insulate air. At the same time, it is finer than any other wool in the world, measuring 12 micrometers in diameter.
The animals were sheared and then released; this was only done once every four years. That operation must be very delicate because the animal is very fragile and if scared, it can easily die of a heart attack.
All of this contributes to the rareness, scarcity and ultimately pricing of the vicuna wool. Consider by the luxury knitwear brands as the ultimate luxury fabric, it is most commonly distributed by Italian luxury brands as a fine-wool garment.
