NOLE, Torino, Italy —Manifattura Tessile Di Nole at 100 years of age is testimony to standing your ground in a difficult weaving environment and selling only to wholesalers and world class editeurs, according to Luca Ferrari, owner of the original velvet mill purchased by his father in the 1970’s from a failing Italian textile conglomerate.   

DiNole’s business, primarily upholstery and decoration fabrics, is doing well with customers in France, Germany and England and sales are up in 2012 according to Ferrari. “In times of recession, fashion goes to the classic and that’s what we provide. We try to keep it simple, step by step but improving our techniques every year,” Ferrari says.

His father was manager of the DiNole mill while Ferrari’s grandfather worked in the mill as the weaving director. Ferrari is a consummate businessman, whose skills were honed through higher commerce and business school degree plus a six year stint as the manager of global accountant Ernest & Young in Torino prior to joining DiNole in 1991. He loves business while his father and grandfather loved fabrics. With two sons, Amodeo (20) who just started to work at DiNole part time and Alberto (18) still in school, he hopes that at least one of them will like the business and join him but “that’s up to them,” he says. Ferrari is on the road six months of the year and appreciates his home life when he is there. Luca Ferrari

His father and grandfather were textile men. “We focus on two things only—production and our customer. Because we produce everything in house, we keep our customers’ designs a secret. The only way to remain in business is to have nice customers who appreciate what we can do for them. Maybe there are still a few who don’t know DiNole but we probably have the top 200 high end and nicest customers in the world today.” Ferrari quotes Jonathan Mould, owner of Romo who’s grandmother once said: “If you sell nice fabric you will meet nice people.”

The original business was started in 1913 by two men, Magnone and Tedescho in Nole on the Swiss border in the Torino region which is more famous for its northern Italian Piedmontasse wines than for textiles. Most of the Italian textile industry is in the regions of Brianza and Tuscany.  Nole may be the only textile mill in the Torino region but it has survived and prospered at the hands of the same weaving families that brought it life 100 years ago. Ferrari figures that 4,400 workers labored at DiNole over the years from the same 30 families which still work at the mill, about 80 workers currently. “These people stick with us. It’s our strength. They know the customers and the specific designs of those customers.” 

There is no open line and everything is woven to order for the individual wholesaler and editeur. DiNole weaves 7,700 colors of plain cotton velvet which form the backbone of the business. Di Nole is vertical and this has been a great strength all of these years, says Ferrari. “We warp, weave and piece dye jacquard wovens and velvets in the same 30,000 square meters factory. We only spin yarn—cotton, linen, wool, cashmere and silk and then dye it outside the plant with other suppliers.” Ferrari says it is always easy to find good yarn dyers but everything else is handled internally which has made DiNole very independent of the textile meltdown other mills have experienced. Some closed because they could not replace their vendors while others may have been mismanaged. DiNole never had to rely on any outside vendor for its existence so it prospered even during tough times like the industry is facing today, Ferrari says.

Di Nole weaves 140 and 290 centimeter widths, primarily for upholstery but some of its heavy double faced velvets are used for theatrical curtains in the world’s greatest concert and opera halls like LaScala in Milan and Colon in Buenos Aires, Argentina. With 70 looms to its credit, DiNole’s original business of face to face velvets in cotton and silk was complimented by flatwoven jacquard looms in the 1980’s with a 50/50 mix of looms devoted to each construction. Finishing is also achieved in the same plant. The line offers solid color cotton velvets from ten Euro per meter to 250 Euro for silk velvet. “Faster production is not better,” he explains. “Slower speeds are better for producing the best silk and cashmere velvets in the world.”

Items can stay in the customers’ line for as long as 60 years even though DiNole might have changed an outside supplier or two during that same time period. Five to ten years is the normal lifespan of a fabric for DiNole but then the customer may rebook the colors. DiNole’s four man design studio produces designs for its customers as well as accepts customers’ own designs. Once the design is made for a customer, only that customer can have it, Ferrari says.