The atelier
Every Ombrine piece is cut and finished by hand in one workroom above the river Cervo, twenty minutes from the mill that weaves its cloth.
The workroom, Biella, early light
Eleven tailors, one table each
It begins at the mill
The double-face cloth is woven as two fabrics joined by a single binding thread. In the workroom that thread is cut by hand along every edge, and the two faces are folded in and stitched to each other. Nothing is lined; nothing is glued.
The mill has woven for the family since 1952, and the cloth never travels further than the valley before it becomes a coat.
Forty-one hours, one coat
Chalk
The pattern is drawn straight onto the cloth, one size at a time, and cut with shears.
Needle
Every edge is closed with a hidden slip stitch, about twelve to the centimetre.
“A coat is finished when there is nothing left to take away. Usually that is the hardest week.”
Ilario Benedetti, head of the atelier
