Lorena Antoniazzi | once an Hermès supplier, but if fabric matters to you, be careful
Lorena Antoniazzi | once an Hermès supplier, but if fabric matters to you, be careful
Since I encountered Lorena Antoniazzi around the same time as Lauren Manoogian, and their names are quite similar, I felt it was natural to follow up my Lauren Manoogian post with one about Lorena Antoniazzi.
However, the high expectations I initially had for the brand were met with disappointment, making this another example of a brand that failed to impress.
01
Lorena Antoniazzi is a luxury Italian brand specializing in knitwear, founded in 1993 in Perugia, Umbria, Italy. This is the birthplace of both Lorena Antoniazzi and her husband Luca Mirabassi, the brand’s co-founders. Their passion for fashion and high-quality materials gave rise to the company, which became famous for its fine cashmere products. Today, even Lorena’s two children work at the company.
Lorena, like many designers, comes from a family rooted in textiles. She grew up surrounded by tailoring, with parents or grandparents in the trade. She started as a sales associate, later becoming a department director, and then moved to Milan, where Enrico Coveri noticed her. She began working on Coveri’s leather collection before finding her true passion in knitwear, collaborating with international clients like Claude Montana and Giorgio Armani. The brand even produced knitwear for Hermès menswear in its early days.
Lorena Antoniazzi emphasizes family values, innovation, and sustainability, using high-quality materials such as cashmere, silk, and leather. The brand’s designs aim for elegance combined with functionality, attracting customers from around the world.
Initially, the brand launched with just 40 knitwear pieces, which sold out in the German market. Antoniazzi and Mirabassi continued to combine craftsmanship with innovative techniques, gradually expanding the brand internationally. Flagship stores opened in key locations like Paris, New York, Cannes, and Milan, and the brand formed partnerships with strong fashion distributors in countries such as Russia and China.
In China, Lorena Antoniazzi is mainly sold through SKP-Select, which is where I first encountered the brand. Among the many streetwear brands, its minimalistic design and cashmere fabrics caught my attention, planting the seed for this article.
The brand opened its first flagship store in Paris in 2013, followed by stores in Milan, Ortisei, Incisa’s The Mall, the renowned Swiss ski resort St. Moritz, and Cannes. In South Korea, the brand has multiple stores in Daegu, Busan, and Seoul.
Ortisei, located in the Dolomites, is known for its picturesque mountains, beautiful ski resorts, and rich tradition of wood carving, attracting tourists for skiing, hiking, and traditional craftsmanship.
The brand places importance on traceability. After gaining more visibility in 2013, they introduced a QR code system for tracking product authenticity.
02
When you look at their designs, fabrics, and prices, you’re likely to be disappointed.
Many of the brand’s products are made from polyester, nylon, or viscose fabrics, with very few using wool or cashmere. Even coats priced at 20,000 yuan are often made entirely of polyester, and wool is rarely seen.
Despite positioning themselves as a knitwear specialist, their knit designs look like this:
Even the better fabrics are a blend: 59% wool, 28% nylon, and only 10% cashmere, or at best, 100% wool. Most are synthetics.
The styles are quite traditional and basic, with many items lacking model images. Out of hundreds of products, only a few have model shots.
The website’s gray backgrounds and dull star logo give an impression of bleakness and decay. The clothing designs are underwhelming, and the fabric quality does not justify the high prices. No wonder SKP is one of the few places that stocks the brand — it feels like a label designed to capitalize on consumers without offering much in return.
I hadn’t come across a brand this disappointing in a long time. I initially intended to write about it months ago, but after researching the fabrics, I felt it wasn’t worth it. I almost deleted this post after writing 500 words, but I decided to keep it as a cautionary tale for others.
Despite being founded in 1993, Lauren Manoogian,only has 28k followers on Instagram. In comparison, Lauren Manoogian has 142k followers, and other brands I’ve written about that have seen a decline, like Proenza Schouler,By Malene Birger ,House of Dagmar all have over 100k followers. It’s clear this brand isn’t well-loved abroad either, and it makes sense that they’re opening stores in lesser-known places like Daegu and Busan in Korea. I personally find it less impressive than Korean brands like Nothing Written or Recto.
Looking back at Lorena Antoniazzi’s store displays, the pieces indeed lack substance, with dated colors and uninspired designs. I’ve even seen people on Xiaohongshu label it as “old money style,” but they’ve likely been misled by a few well-shot beige and warm-toned model images.
If you really want to buy Lorena Antoniazzi, I’d recommend sticking to their wool pieces, such as wool sweaters or wool blazers, as these are their bestsellers. However, at these price points, there are far better brands to choose from, such as la Collection, fibiana filippi, Armarium ,setchu , BLAZÉ MILANO I introduced in Spent 4 Days in Lane Crawford Exploring Over 300 Brands to Curate the 30 Best Niche Cashmere and Quiet Luxury Brands and separate brand series I’ve written before
Conclusion
The most valuable takeaway from writing about this brand has been learning about the stunning vacation spots in Ortisei and St.Moritz. The scenery is so beautiful that it could elevate even a mundane storyline in a movie.
by: pamperherself
