Three days in Biella,
and one roll worth buying

Deadstock sounds romantic until you are standing in a warehouse in April looking at eleven rolls of cloth that nobody wanted, and understanding exactly why.

The mill floor

Biella mills keep what a season did not sell in a room at the back. The good rolls go first, usually to houses with standing arrangements. What is left by April is what you are actually choosing from.

What we walk from

Anything with a finishing fault that runs. Anything under thirty metres — you cannot cut a run of forty from it. Anything blended down to hit a price the original buyer wanted and we do not.

The roll

Sixty-two metres of 70/30 wool-cashmere in a colour the mill called Avena. Enough for forty-one jackets. We took forty and left the remainder for the repair stock.

What it became

The Sculpted Blazer. Half-canvassed, horn buttons, Bemberg lining. When those forty are gone the pattern goes into the archive and the cloth does not exist anywhere else.