How to tell real mill cloth from a copy: the selvedge, the reference and the paperwork

Check three things before you trust a mill name on cloth from any maker: the name on the selvedge, a bunch and reference number you can match with the mill, and order paperwork that names both. If a maker cannot give you all three for a cloth they call Zegna or Loro Piana, the mill name is only a claim.

The name on the selvedge

The selvedge, the finished edge along both sides of the cloth, is the first place to look, because mills and merchants mark it with their name.

Caccioppoli in Naples is a merchant. It buys finished cloth from mills, mostly in Biella, and adds its own selvedge mark, so cloth sold as Caccioppoli is genuine Caccioppoli cloth. The test for any mill or merchant is the same one: does the name on the selvedge match the name you were sold?

The selvedge also tells you where the cloth was woven. Dugdale Bros cloth has a selvedge that says Made in Huddersfield, and a suit we make from it in our Shanghai workshop is British cloth made up in China. Both facts are stated in the open, the cloth's origin on the selvedge and the suit's on the garment label, which states the country of origin.

The bunch and the reference

Every cloth sits in a bunch, the mill's swatch book, under a reference number. The bunch groups the designs and the reference pins down the exact weave, weight and colour, which means a mill name with no reference attached cannot be checked by anyone.

Some mills make this easy. A Zegna reference travels with the garment, so your client can look it up himself. We hold 162 Zegna styles in Shanghai, 99 Trofeo and 63 Traveller, plus 40 Vitale Barberis Canonico Four Seasons styles, each under its reference in the bunch.

Loro Piana is harder to check, because it has no public bunch book and the group's textile trade site sits behind a login, so you cannot browse references the way you can with Zegna. For that reason we put the bunch and reference number on your order documents. Those two items are the part of the claim you can ask the mill to confirm.

The mill's own website

To confirm a cloth, go to the mill or merchant itself and leave your maker's own pages out of it.

Zegna shows why this matters. The site zegna.com is the group's retail store and sells finished clothing; the textile side, including the original mill, is on the corporate site under "Our Filiera", and that is where to check the mill.

Cerruti is a second case. A Paris fashion label and a Biella wool mill share the Cerruti name and are separate businesses. We buy from the mill, Lanificio F.lli Cerruti, so if a maker offers you "Cerruti cloth", ask which Cerruti they mean.

The paperwork you can ask for

Your order documents from us carry the bunch and reference of the cloth. For special-order cloth we order the named bunch and reference against your confirmed job, and you can ask which mill or merchant the order went to.

A maker who buys cloth as a customer, ourselves included, may not be able to share its own supplier invoices. The mill's invoice is between the mill and the maker, so do not expect one as standard proof from anybody. The bunch and reference are what you can check: take them to the mill and ask whether the cloth is theirs.

Warning signs

Watch for these with any maker, us included:

a famous cloth name with no bunch or reference number attached;
a claim to be an "authorised dealer" of a mill with no written agreement to show for it, when nobody selling mill cloth to a tailor shop should make that claim without showing the agreement;
a maker who will not say whether a cloth is held in stock or ordered in as a special order, even though the answer changes your timeline;
a finished suit whose garment label hides or leaves out the country of origin (ours states it).

How we handle it

We buy from 33 mills and merchants, 26 of them in Europe, as a customer, and we are not an authorised dealer, licensee or representative of any of them. The held books are Zegna (162 styles) and Vitale Barberis Canonico (40 styles), plus our house cloth, Corsini LANA Four Seasons. Everything else on our cloth list is a special order against a confirmed job, and The mills and merchants we cut from goes through them name by name.

The suits are made in our own workshop in Shanghai, China, founded in 1996. Italian Mill Suits is not a mill and does not make suits in Italy. The About page has more on the workshop.

What to do next

Ask on WhatsApp for swatches of the held books, so you can check the selvedge and the reference yourself. The minimum order is one piece, with 14 days in production from the confirmed order, plus shipping. If you would rather write, send an enquiry.

Questions

Common questions

Will the cloth reference appear on my order?

Yes. Your order documents carry the bunch and the reference number of the cloth, so you or your client can check it with the mill or merchant.

Are you an authorised dealer of Zegna or Loro Piana?

No. We buy cloth as a customer of each mill and merchant. We are not an authorised dealer, licensee or representative of any of them. Ask any maker who claims otherwise to show you the agreement.

Is merchant cloth less genuine than mill cloth?

No. A merchant buys finished cloth from mills and sells it under its own name, often with its own selvedge mark. That cloth is genuine merchant cloth. The check is whether the name on the selvedge matches the name you were sold.