The silks of Como: A reminder of the value of craft

I miss this. Visiting a mill is such an enjoyable, often inspiring experience, yet I don’t do it as much as I used to. Perhaps because once you’d done one worsted weaver it’s hard to justify more. But we’ve never done silk. I did go to Vann... > Read more

By Swedan Margen2 September 2026

The silks of Como: A reminder of the value of craft Wednesday, September 2nd 2026Tags:

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But we’ve never done silk. I did go to Vanners years ago, but that was brief and in the early days of Permanent Style, when there really wasn’t much detail.

This trip was my first time in the home of silk, Como in Italy. And I did it by piggy-backing (a British phrase that, or broader?) on the buying trip of J Mueser. That’s my J Mueser jacket I’m wearing below, with a brown Finest Polo and Brioni MTM cotton trousers.

We went to two places, SilkPro and Fermo Fossati.

SilkPro is not a manufacturer, they supply a range of qualities and designs (men’s and women’s) using various producers around Como. But they’re a good option for a brand that wants lots of different options and some new ideas. And that’s something the Mueser guys were interested in.

Fossati, on the other hand, is the old-school producer, weaving grenadine silks on machines over a hundred years old, and the ultra-fine Carlo Riva shirtings on wooden machines going back to the 1940s. It’s owned by the bow-tie-wearing menswear legend Otto Mantero. (Who started wearing bows, apparently, so there was no chance of the end of his necktie getting caught in the looms.)

Fossati is where you go to see the history of weaving, and how an old, narrow loom can produce a cloth no modern power loom could. They’re just too fast. It’s also where you go to see one of the most beautiful menswear archives in existence.

The Mueser team looking at tie options at SilkPro

But we started at SilkPro, and talking to Franco and Patrizia reminded me of a further reason I love these trips: the people.

The two of them grew up around Como and the silk industry. “When we were children you could see what silk was being dyed that day by the colour of the river,” says Patrizia. “It all ran down into the lake and it was different every day.”

That wasn’t healthy though, or good for the environment. Today the restrictions are tighter and the water is clear. Indeed, Como is so keen on the quality of the water that they clean some of what runs into the lake to the extent that it’s drinkable.

This was a nice fact to bear in mind the following day, as we took a boat tour around the lake. We couldn’t spot George Clooney though, despite spending too long floating idly next to his house.

Silks on a beige base (top half) and neon yellow (bottom half)

People who have spent their lives in a particular industry like Franco and Patrizia often have a particular enthusiasm for it. They enjoy telling you about the prints and the wovens, the fibres and the finishes, even when you’re buying some pretty straightforward ties.

My favourite thing they showed us was how printed silks change depending on the base colour underneath. The same pattern looks quite different depending on whether it’s printed on a neon-yellow background, for example, or a beige one.

Above you can see the contrast – the top set is printed on beige (just visible at the edge of the fabrics) and the bottom on yellow. The yellow doesn’t make the result harsh or cheap; it just brightens everything. Other base colours are shown on the left.

Sometimes the best thing is the old logos

Over at Fossati, Gianni gave us a tour round all their old looms with the same kind of enthusiasm. He apologised more than once for how cramped the place was, but to us, it was perfect – nothing better than a place with history and character, where new looms and filing cabinets have clearly had to be fitted and shunted in around old ones.

I’m not the biggest fan of Carlo Riva fabrics, as I find them too fine and delicate, but it was still lovely to see them being woven, the difference in the speed of the looms allowing more delicate yarn to be used and creating a more drapey, air-filled material.

And I am a big fan of grenadines. My navy ‘garza grossa’ or big-knot grenadine tie is probably been my most worn piece of neckwear over the past 15 years, and I still wear it today. Somehow, it’s avoided the little nicks and pulls that can easily harm a grenadine if you’re not careful.

Chances are the fabric for my tie was woven at Fossati, and that added a little something to the pleasure of watching new material slowly come out of the wooden loom, one long row after another.

In my grenadine tie and Cifonelli jacket, in 2013

However, the place we all enjoyed most was Fossati’s archive room. If you’re a menswear fan, being somewhere like this is akin to going into a tie store and finding literally thousands of designs to choose from. It’s almost overwhelming.

The taste level also means the colour combinations are beautiful. Look at the ones below – that rust with steel-blue stripe; bronze with burgundy; sky blue with rich brown. They’re so good it hurts.

I spent a happy hour running through hundreds of them – with no real aim in mind, just letting the menswear wash over me.

“Como as a whole is not doing that well, but we’re OK,” Gianni told us. “Fewer people want silks at this quality level any more, but the ones that do come to us.”

For some reason, hearing Gianni talk like this reminded me of men who ask why they should pay for original design or high quality; why rip-off designs and basics aren’t all they need. It reminded me to buy the best I can afford – for the sake of the joy in the product but also to support makers like this. The first silk mill I visited, Vanners, went out of business a few years ago, after making for over 250 years; every year one more seems to go the same way.

“The fashion brands are doing well, and they can afford to buy our silks, but the mid-market is really struggling,” said Gianni. “It’s the same in Italy as in the UK, only the very high-end producers are left.”

I try to resist the urge to lecture on PS, but I can’t say I always succeed. It’s hard to when you see such dedicated people, and such gorgeous product, and imagine the flood of copycat trainers and cheap sweats slowly drowning them all.

I’m going to go now and lovingly polish my 10-year old oxford shoes, and tie my 15-year-old grenadine, because we have a lunch to celebrate Bao passing his probation today. Here's hoping you find a similar excuse sometime soon.

Somehow, coffee at an Italian mill always tastes better in a plastic cup

Thank you to Franco Bernasconi and Patrizia Ceppi of SilkPro, and Gianni Caspani of Fermo Fossati for their time and help. Thank you to Jake, Jeff, Chase and Mattia at J Mueser for having me along.