“Our excellence“: this is the value proposition found on Loro Piana‘s official website under the “viçuna” section. And indeed, how could anyone think otherwise? It is over thirty years that the Italian flagship brand of “quiet luxury” has created the first nature reserve in Peru aimed at preserving the viçuna species, all in honour of founder Franco Loro Piana. A respectable mission to safeguard animals and create jobs for indigenous peoples.
Loro Piana is part of the luxury giant LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, headed by Bernard Arnault, which is worth USD 202 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. An exclusive brand, for wealthy people for sure, founded in 1924, with no small heritage and a worldwide resonance.
Yet something in the world of this quiet luxury has made noise. Bloomberg came out with a report blaming Loro Piana for not doing enough for the indigenous people who offer and process the “fibre of the gods”, “inaccessible to most because of its rarity and beauty”. In short, it has not paid them any money, indeed, one could almost say that the people of the Andes have been living off voluntary work. Instead, the money went into the pockets of one of the richest people in the world, dear Bernard Arnault, and the entire entourage of the Loro Piana brand. At least this is what the Bloomberg study revealed.
But let’s start with the origins.
It is the viçuna, camelids that graze in the southern Andes, that produce this highly prized fibre. It is not the first precious material used by the Italian fashion house, quite the contrary. In fact, Franco Loro Piana loved to go travelling to discover new materials, including lotus flower in Myanmar, merino wool in Australia, and cashmere and baby cashmere in Mongolia and China. However, Bloomberg has uncovered a Pandora’s box: the prized viçuna jumper is sold in shops in fashion hubs for $9,000 while the indigenous population, all, would receive about $280 for an equivalent amount of fibre.
A moving story that of the viçunas and certainly one of good intentions for Loro Piana if it paid its employees fairly. Around the 20th century, the viçuna were threatened with extinction by poachers who killed and skinned them rather than shearing them. The wool trade was banned in 1969. Later, and fortunately, an international treaty re-established a legal market, stipulating that the income from viçuna should benefit the poor local indigenous population. Lucanas was the very first community to shear viçuna in 1994, and since then Loro Piana has become the buyer.
According to Bloomberg, the conditions of the Andean populations is a science fiction film. Houses are built with mud, plumbing is non-existent and the elderly remain subsistence farmers for life. The young, “luckier” ones are forced to work in unregulated gold mines. In 2018, a government-commissioned study found that 80 per cent of the city’s residents said they did not benefit from community participation in trade. Statements are awaited from Loro Piana.
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