Future in a Technological Yarn: Tollegno 1900’s New Cashmere and Nanocashmere™ |

Yesterday we focused on the future of fashion; let's continue the thread by exploring one company that has been developing an innovative product – Tollegno 1900.

The spinning mill showcased at the latest Pitti Filati the new frontier of luxurious yarns: among the new yarns for the Autumn/Winter 2015-16 seasons there are classic 100% Extrafine Merino Wool, 100% Merino Wool, worsted cashmere and silk yarns, and two innovative products, New Cashmere 2/27 and Nanocashmere™ 2/27 (distributed by Tollegno in collaboration with Lora & Festa).

The former is made with fibers that come from the Alashan Region in Inner Mongolia. The harsh climate of this region attracts a special breed of goats that develop a warm and soft undercoat of fibers (between 15 and 16 microns), that is then processed in Mongolia with Italian know-how and machines. New Cashmere yarn offers lightness, high thermal insulation capacity and brilliance.

The latter is instead a completely new material: researched with the University of Hong Kong, the patented technology of Nanocashmere™ works on the nano scale. The result is a high quality water and stain resistant cashmere yarn (even ketchup slides off it, which means fewer sessions at the dry cleaner) implemented with a cutting-edge nanoparticle coating and engineered to perform specific functions (other attributes include improved pilling resistance).

"There is no luxurious material on the market with these characteristics," Lincoln Germanetti, CEO of the Group, states. "These features are currently attracting various companies and brands, especially from the sport and nautical sectors and they may lead to new applications in these fields."

Tollegno first started distributing Nanocashmere™ on the American, Chinese and Japanese markets and, from this year, moved onto the European and Italian markets.

"We worked for roughly three years on this product and we are currently focusing on making it even better," Germanetti explains. "This is an animal fiber and its consistency therefore changes continuously, even though we buy all our chasmere from the Alashan Region."

Tollegno boasts a long tradition and history: the Sella family founded in the early 20th century the Filatura e Tessitura di Tollegno with other entrepreneurs from Biella. In 1946 the company took the name Lanificio di Tollegno.

In the '80s the Maramotti and Germanetti families entered the group with the Sella family and reorganised the production departments investing in new machinery and equipment and acquiring further companies in the following decades.

Filatura e Tessitura di Tollegno can produce 4,000,000 kg per year and exports its products to the United States, Japan, Europe and Greater China. The company owns the brands Tollegno 1900 (pure merino and fine yarns), Lana Gatto (knitting yarns), Ragno (men and women's underwear, outerwear and swimwear) and Julipet (men's underwear, loungewear and beachwear).

Last year Tollegno 1900 also launched a new concept, the factory store: "This is the final representation of the industrial cycle, it completes the process from yarn manufacturing to product," Germanetti says. "People can visit the store and find there at convenient prices the designs yarn professionals see at the company stand at the Pitti Filati, so the store is a vehicle for the collection, but also an embodiment of the manufacturing processes."

The Filatura e Tessitura di Tollegno Group created a Research Center for yarns and fabrics on the premises of the Tollegno factory. Will they ever manage to engineer yarns capable of generating electricity to maybe power small electronic devices? "We are currently developing a few surprises, among them also a self-cleaning yarn", anticipates Germanetti.

We may have to wait for power yarns that convert physical motion into energy, but the current progresses in nanotechnologies may bring new aesthetic solutions in several fashion fields, and guarantee at the same time freedom from boring tasks such as the laundry.