It’s quite a thing to walk into the workshop of your weaving partner and see rich, soft cloth rolling off the looms that colour match the river outside. But this is Italy, where art so often imitates nature; especially at Pontoglio 1883, the world’s finest creator of the short pile velluti that become our ‘Very Italian Velvet’ jackets. Pontoglio has been milling velvet for over 140 years here in the medieval commune of the same name, which is a conjunction of ponte (bridge) and the river Oglio. The river is so clean and profitable for the angler that Giovanni from Pontoglio’s digital printing department fishes for carp from the company’s carpark most days after work - a fine endorsement for the company’s ecomanagement, given that the water used for washing fabrics is treated several times on-site before being returned to the Oglio. M.J. Bale’s velvet fabric is produced here from natural cotton and linen fibres. This includes the lightweight linen-cotton fabric for our Ziggy velvet jackets in deep red, camel, sand, light brown, cobalt blue, midnight, eucalyptus green and dusty blue colours; the black linencotton Ruby velvet tuxedo; the black cotton Lonzo velvet jacket with shawl lapel; the cotton Gregotti velvet jacket in midnight; and the Ragazzi cotton velvet jacket in emerald green.

The latest batch of our Ragazzi fabric in emerald-green was being woven during our visit. “It’s very rich, it’s very soft, it’s very elegant,” says Pontoglio’s fabric designer, Martina. “On the red carpet you always see velvets – red velvets and black velvets. Today, we try to transform velvet in other ways. Not always in the same historic way, but in a new version that is fancier and more special.” The Pontoglio mill is a vertical manufacturer, meaning it controls every stage of production - weaving, dyeing, printing and finishing - here in the workshop. Quality control checks occur at each and every stage of weaving, before the cloth is finished and brushed to get the soft, luxurious hand feel that has been the hallmark of velvet since European royalty began wearing it in the 1300s.

During the finishing process a random piece of fabric is cut from every batch of cloth and sent to a room for intensive abrasion tests, including tear resistance, tensile strength, and seam slippage. It is finally tested for wash, steam, dry cleaning and sunlight… even perspiration, too (no humans are involved in testing, thankfully). It’s an exhaustive yet essential examination, given the premium fabric composition, the rugged nature of M.J. Bale customers, and the equally robust events they are likely to attend wearing these jackets. Following our tour of the workshop, we ask Danilo, Pontoglio’s head of production, what is the key contributing factor to their fabric quality? “It’s many things,” replies Danilo. “It’s the quality of the yarn, sure, but also the experience of the people working inside the factory. The velvet is the most important thing in this factory, and we work only for this. All together. We are a little factory, but we are a big family. Everybody knows each other. We are 80 employees and a lot of people that work here are related... mothers and fathers working with their sons, cousins, grandfathers, nephews… we have three families with three or four generations of the same family working here.”

“It’s the people, yes,” agrees Martina. “Even though we’re in a place of great beauty, it’s not enough. It’s the people that really make it special. It’s really the everyday interactions, like you talking to the other people who work here, what they say to you. That’s really what makes it special. We try to bring inspiration and things from the outside, but at the end of the day it’s the people inside that really make it count.”