UNA STORIA ITALIANA - AN ITALIAN STORY

Thus, the Compagnia del Cavallo was born.

Exactly. Having obtained the permits from the Federation we founded the Compagnia del Cavallo. It is a sports association, and since its foundation the whole Loro Piana family has been part of it. We talked about horses, and how to enter this world, making sure that the sponsor company made itself known by the riders and communicated its existence. At the time Loro Piana was famous for the high quality fabrics it produced, but it was not known beyond the world of tailoring and haute couture.

How did you manage to introduce Loro Piana to the knights?

We started by taking the best riders who were on the Italian field at the time; with names like Roberto Arioldi, Filippo Moyersoen, Diego Deriu and many others of the same stature. Then, as things took hold, we also began to turn to abroad always looking for riders of the highest level to sponsor. And in that area we started in a rather brazen way: my friend Aldo Donadi and I, with whom I was riding at the time and who immediately accompanied me on this adventure, went to ask Nelson Pessoa if he wanted to be our knight. So we took both him and his son Rodrigo, who was just sixteen at the time. After that, of course, the way cleared: we took other very important riders such as Lars Nieberg for example. But our philosophy has always been to take on the team of great champions,

but at the same time also of amateurs who acted a bit as an intermediary between those who simply went on horseback and those who were at the highest levels, to have a kind of trait d’union between the two worlds, which had always been very separate. Among these, we have also had Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, the sister of the king of Jordan on the team for two years with the Loro Piana colors.

You have a special bond with Piazza di Siena. Is that true? 

Yes, once Loro Piana became a well-known sponsorin the field of equestrian sports, we began to take an interest in Piazza di Siena, and we began to work on the event. We started right away with the Rome Grand Prix, which after about fifteen years, became the Loro Pi Grand Prix. It took us many years to get it to be called that but in the end, we succeeded.

Loro Piana has somehow become “synonymous” with great horse riding. I remember many names of horses whose name was preceded by the name of the company, such as the very famous Loro Piana Lagan Bridge … 

That’s right, Lagan Bridge did the power categories with Roberto Arioldi. And the name of Loro Piana soon began to appear next to the names of many important horses. To give just a few examples, I can mention Loro Piana Duganò and Loro Piana Special Envoy (edited by both Nelson and Rodrigo Pessoa). In this regard, I remember that at the beginning of our adventure while in the stands I heard people starting to wonder who this “Loro Piana” was … And I heard a person, with a “very informed” air, saying: “It is a Sardinian farm that supplies the horses to Filippo Moyersoen and Roberto Arioldi ~. [laughs, Editor’s Notej Well, at the beginning no one knew Loro Piana, and our attempt almost started as a game. In the end it became much more important than we imagined. We had tremendous success and eventually Loro Piana was all they knew.

Loro Piana is a great success in clothing for horse riding. How did the company’s adventure begin, in this sense? 

Loro Piana started creating jackets for its team. For the riders at the time there were only the Husky and the Barbour, which were not the best for horse riding. So, we had specific jackets made for the twenty or thirty people who were part of the team and did the races, and every year several were invented. At the end of the second or third year, many people came to ask us where they could buy the jackets we wore. Obviously, at the beginning we replied that they were not for sale because there was no production, but many kept asking us for information. Therefore, I went to Sergio Loro Piana, who unfortunately passed away recently, and I suggested that he put a riding jacket into production and on sale. At the time, Loro Piana only made high quality cashmere fabrics, scarves and blankets. At that time, however, Pierluigi also entered into agreements with Gore-Tex for the waterproofing of the garments, and so we put the two together. At first only about fifty jackets were made. “It will mean that, if we don’t sell them, you will have them for life”, Sergio told me. And instead we went to the Fieracavalli in Verona with a stand and the jackets sold very well. The Horsey, the one invented at the time, is still in production today. And from there the whole production of Loro Piana outerwear was born. And from there, their showcase and their Storm System® was also born which made jackets for many other sports. Obviously, the merit of the expansion is certainly not of the Company, but we were the starting point.