Vitale Barberis Canonico fabric

Neither of those words describes us accurately, so here is the plain version. We buy VBC cloth as an ordinary customer of the mill, the same way many makers do, and we cut and make garments from it in our own atelier. We are not an authorised dealer, a licensee, an appointed stockist or a representative, and we do not speak for the mill. What we can do is make a garment for you in the cloth, from one piece, under your own label. What we cannot do is sell you the mill's endorsement, and nor can most of the people who imply otherwise.

It depends on what wholesale means to you. Cloth merchants will sell you cut lengths from around three metres, which is the practical route for a shop that cuts in house. Buying from the mill itself means an account and cloth by the piece, which only makes sense at volume you can genuinely turn over within a season. If what you actually want is to offer VBC suits to your clients rather than to hold cloth, the third route is usually the better economics: order the finished garment from a maker who already holds the cloth, and let the inventory risk sit with them.

With us, one. A single made-to-measure suit, jacket or coat in VBC cloth under your own label is a normal order and not a favour, and there is no first-order quantity to clear before you start. That is the whole point of the arrangement for a shop testing whether its clients will pay for Italian mill cloth: you find out on one garment rather than on a rail of them.

They are answering different questions. Loro Piana buys at the very top of the fibre market and is chosen for rarity and hand, which a certain client can feel immediately and will pay for. VBC is the trade's dependable spine: fine enough to look genuinely good, resilient enough to be worn hard, and consistent enough that a reorder matches the original. For a client's first suit, or any suit worn weekly, VBC in a mid weight is usually the more intelligent recommendation. Save the rarer cloth for the second order, once the pattern is already corrected and the client has something to rotate with.

For most of Europe and North America, start at 260 to 280 g. It wears comfortably from spring through autumn and under a coat in winter, and it is forgiving of a client who owns one suit and wears it hard. Go heavier, 320 g and above, for a genuinely cold climate or a client who wants the hand of a heavier cloth. Go under 240 g only for summer, and tell the client it will crease before they order rather than after. If you are unsure, order the mid weight first and let your own customers tell you what they want next.

The cloth is woven in Italy. Where the garment is made is a separate question with a separate answer, and origin labelling generally follows where the garment was made up rather than where the cloth was woven. Our own garments are made in our Shanghai atelier, in cloth from Italian and British mills, and we say so plainly on every page that touches the subject. Any supplier who blurs that line for you is likely to blur other things later, and the ones that blur it hardest are usually the ones with the most to hide.

Yes. It is normal trade practice and is usually called cut, make and trim. You send the cloth, we cut and make it. Two things matter and both are worth settling in writing first: send enough, worked out from the pattern for that person rather than from a table, and agree in advance what happens if the garment misses, because the cloth is not replaceable once it has been cut into.

About 14 to 20 working days in production once the cloth is in hand, plus shipping. The variable that moves that date is almost never the making; it is whether the cloth has to be sourced first. A reference we already hold starts on day one. A reference that has to come in from a bunch starts when it lands, which is the single most common reason a promised fitting date moves, and the reason we would rather tell you the sourcing time separately than fold it into one comfortable-sounding number.