The label honored the herders behind its most treasured fiber with its 11th annual Cashmere of the Year Award.

On Nov. 10, three couples of herders from Inner Mongolia earned one of the most exclusive titles in luxury textiles. The <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/loro-piana-italian-aura-blockchain-consortium-technology-wool-digital-authenticity">Loro Piana</a> Cashmere of the Year Award—now in its 11th edition—crowned the herders behind the finest cashmere produced in 2025, and with them, a fiber fineness of a mere 12.89 microns.
Considering the fiber is grown on the vast grasslands of Inner Mongolia and combed by hand each spring, it should come as no surprise that the Italian heritage brand synonymous with quiet luxury has made a point of celebrating the people who gather it.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/loro-piana-history-brand">Loro Piana</a> created the award in 2015 to reward the herders who produce the finest cashmere fiber, and since its inception, cashmere fineness has improved significantly. A devoted Pier Luigi Loro Piana, the house’s deputy chairman, has been traveling to China to meet these herders since the 1980s.
Up for grabs was a financial reward per kilo of fiber produced, as well as an intricately crafted silver comb symbolizing the cashmere gathering process. Taking first prize were Siqingbilige and Hasiqiqige, whose cashmere weighed 135.8 kilograms greasy, with a fiber diameter of 12.89 microns. Jiyatu and Gegentuya followed in second, with 87.1 kilograms at 13.01 microns, while Lifuqiang and Qiqi placed third, with 116 kilograms at 13.04 microns. Not to split hairs, but a single human hair measures around 70 microns.

Loro Piana savoir-faire. Courtesy of Loro Piana.

Indeed, the award is only one piece of the house’s work in the region. Since 2009, The Loro Piana Method has used a local farm and a reiterative selection program to improve the quality and fineness of the fiber produced per animal, all while contributing to the preservation of the Alashan goat. The approach has since spread among local herders and breeders, leading to new generations of goats. In 2025, the house launched Resilient Threads, a program supporting cashmere cooperatives, herding communities, and steppes in Mongolia’s vulnerable Sukhbaatar Province. It was created in partnership with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Sustainable Fiber Alliance, and the Odyssey Conservation Trust.

Herders and their goats in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. Courtesy of Loro Piana.

Loro Piana’s ties to cashmere are part of a much longer family story. The house was founded in 1924 in Quarona, a small town in Italy’s Piedmont region, where its factory still runs today. Over the decades, the brand has gone straight to the source for its raw materials, from vicuña in Peru to merino wool in Australia and New Zealand. In 1997, it introduced the Record Bale Award for the year’s finest bale of merino. The record-holding bale is kept in a glass case in Quarona until a finer one comes along. Only then is it spun into The Gift of Kings, one of the house’s rarest wools. As for cashmere, last year’s winners, Li Zhanqiang and Yue Fang of Otog Banner, were honored in Shanghai during Loro Piana’s 100th anniversary celebrations for fiber measuring 12.8 microns.

"Master of Cashmere: The Quest for Fiber Excellence" at The Brant Foundation. Courtesy of Loro Piana.

This year’s winners were celebrated that evening at The Brant Foundation, an art space in New York’s East Village housed in a former 1920s Con Edison substation. Guests, including Jeremy Strong, Bruce and Jessica Springsteen, and Nicky Hilton, explored Master of Cashmere: The Quest for Fiber Excellence, an exhibition on the house’s history with the fiber, before sitting down to dinner beside the three winning bales. There was news, too. CEO Frédéric Arnault revealed that the house will create an exclusive collection using the award-winning cashmere it has gathered over the past 11 years, made in only a limited number of pieces. Details on when and where the pieces will be available have yet to be shared.

The table setting at the Loro Piana Cashmere of the Year Award dinner. Courtesy of Loro Piana.

The dining room at The Brant Foundation. Courtesy of Loro Piana.

Loro Piana Proves That the World’s Finest Cashmere Starts on the Steppes

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