Wool and Woolen Goods

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    Jacob Long’s Big Bet on American Woolen, a Connecticut Textile Mill

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    On a recent afternoon, Jacob Long gave a tour of the Connecticut wool mill that has become his biggest investment, his life’s mission and an unrelenting source of worry.A factory building murkily lit even in daylight, the vast space contains 40 high-speed looms, as well as decommissioned spinning equipment that was thrown in when he bought the mill 11 years ago even though he had no experience in textile manufacturing.Mr. Long, 54, talks quickly and bounds rather than walks. More than one colleague described him as the Energizer Bunny. He wears slim-fitting dress shirts, slim-cut trousers and chunky, stylish eyeglasses. Having worked as a banker in Europe for 25 years, he now comes off as a stranger in his own country: He speaks fluent Italian and sometimes struggles to come up with the American word or phrase to describe something.He led the way past the old, idle equipment to a prized new machine, a German-made sample warper that cost $300,000. It was an essential part of his grand plan to revive America’s craft textile heritage — and finally make a profit.“I convinced my wife to sell her last apartment in Italy to buy this machine,” Mr. Long said, adding with a nervous laugh: “Please don’t talk to my wife.”For a decade, Mr. Long has been delivering a well-worn — and largely ignored — sales pitch for his improbable venture, comparing it to the craft breweries that uplifted local economies with an emphasis on quality over quantity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lawmaker Presses Loro Piana on Reports of Exploiting Indigenous Workers in Peru

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      A freshman congressman is demanding answers from the fashion house Loro Piana, which sources wool from his native Peru and faces accusations of exploiting workers there. A $9,000 designer sweater made out of the ultrarare fur of a South American animal called a vicuña is not exactly a typical area of focus for a member of the U.S. Congress.But when Representative Robert Garcia, a first-term California Democrat and the first Peruvian-born person to serve in the House, saw reports that the luxury design house Loro Piana was not fairly compensating Indigenous workers in Peru who source the rare wool in some of its priciest knit clothing, he decided to use his position to make some noise.“As the first Peruvian American member of Congress and co-chair of the Congressional Peru Caucus, I write regarding concerning reports about the sourcing of vicuña wool by Loro Piana, a subsidiary of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton,” he wrote to company executives last month.He demanded that the fashion house — whose products including shirts, scarves and coats can cost anywhere from $500 to $30,000 — explain how it could raise its prices so steeply while steadily reducing the amount it was paying the people who harvest the raw materials for it.“While Loro Piana’s prices have increased, the price per kilo for fibers paid to the Lucanas community has fallen by one-third in just over a decade; and the villages’ revenue from the vicuña has fallen 80 percent,” Mr. Garcia wrote.A member of the Totoroma community in Puno, Peru, during a vicuña roundup and shearing in 2021.Carlos Mamani/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More