In Ulaanbaatar, the LVMH-owned maison presents progress on its Resilient Threads initiative as it marks 40 years of sourcing luxury fibre from the region

Italian label Loro Piana marked its 40-year-long relationship with Mongolia at Cop17 – the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) – currently under way in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital.
The UN-based biennial conference convenes representatives of governments, international organisations, financial institutions and scientists from around the world to find solutions to issues originating from desertification, land degradation and drought.

A landlocked country with immense natural resources and a vast, diverse landscape where arid desert sits alongside fertile grasslands, Mongolia is home to the only Loro Piana mill outside Italy.

Known for its luxurious garments made of precious yarns such as cashmere, Loro Piana, which was founded in the Piedmont region of northern Italy in 1924, sources its raw materials from countries including Peru, New Zealand and Australia. The brand has been sourcing cashmere from Mongolia for over four decades. In 1997, it officially set up its Mongolian operations before opening a manufacturing plant in Ulaanbaatar in 1999. To support Mongolia’s herding communities and cashmere cooperatives, last year the house launched Resilient Threads, a multi-year programme to protect the biodiversity of Mongolia’s Eastern Steppe and safeguard the well-being of its inhabitants.

Created to deal with the challenges posed by climate change, the project is founded upon the One Health principle, a scientific approach that takes into account the interconnected well-being of people, animals and the environment they inhabit.

In its first year, the initiative has led to the establishment of a biodiversity centre, a rehabilitation programme for the Bayandelger red goat, and the Dzud Impact Report – Dzud is a winter disaster unique to Mongolia, hampering animal grazing, feed and water, resulting in livestock loss. A One Health masterclass at the Mongolian University of Life Sciences, in partnership with the Royal Veterinary College and University of Liège, is also in the works. The programmes commit to the training of students and professionals on One Health practices, and the preservation of endangered species of goats that not only provide prized fibres like cashmere, but also staples such as goat milk and meat for the local population.

Driven by local experts, Resilient Threads also involves initiatives such as the One Health Mobile Hub, a travelling clinic offering herders and their animals healthcare services they wouldn’t be able to access without crossing long distances from their remote locations.

“It’s challenging, but it’s rewarding to see these concepts in action after just talking about these things for so long,” said Dr Batkhishig Baival, project lead at Resilient Threads, during a chat at the Loro Piana booth at Cop17. “It’s a learning process, and always evolving also because it requires all of the stakeholders’ engagement and they don’t always agree. The interests of wildlife protection entities, for instance, are often different from [those of the] goat herders, but we always find a [common ground].”

Resilient Threads is set to last until 2030, but the Mongolian government is paying close attention to the data being gathered to assess whether to implement the programme long term. Baival added that many provinces have expressed interest in being part of the initiative, which for now only focuses on Sukhbaatar province.

Loro Piana has been working to create a protocol to certify responsibly sourced cashmere since 2019 – when it began its partnership with the International Cooperation Committee of Animal Welfare and the Sustainable Fibre Alliance – but Resilient Threads furthers its commitment to empowering local herder communities.

Part of LVMH, the largest luxury group in the world, Loro Piana has always prided itself on the excellence of its Made in Italy creations and its vertically integrated supply chain, which begins at the very source – the raw materials – before the fibres travel to Italy and are transformed into yarns that are also used by other luxury brands like LVMH’s Louis Vuitton, and the independent Hermès.

Its pristine state-of-the-art factory in Ulaanbaatar, which is on par with its counterparts in Italy, is just an example of the brand’s long history in Mongolia, which began in the 80s, when the Loro Piana family started travelling to the country “in search of the world’s finest cashmere”, as Loro Piana CEO Frédéric Arnault explained at Cop17. “True luxury begins with nature, with exceptional fibres, and with the people and places that make them possible,” Arnault said.

“We believe that what we do at Loro Piana, and also more globally, at the LVMH level, at all the 70 houses, cannot exist without an integrated approach to building a healthy and resilient ecosystem,” the CEO added in a speech at the French embassy the day before his appearance at Cop17.

This was Arnault’s first trip to the country, a sign of the importance of the relationship between Mongolia and the maison – and also of the ever-growing interest in traceability from luxury consumers, who are becoming more demanding when it comes to matters such as provenance and sustainability.

By Vincenzo La Torre
Formerly the fashion editor of the South China Morning Post, Vincenzo La Torre is the chief editor of Style, the South China Morning Post’s luxury monthly publication. Born and raised in Italy, Vincenzo started his career in journalism after graduating from Columbia University in New York, where he studied East Asian Languages and Cultures with a focus on Japanese and Chinese art. He has previously worked for Vogue Japan in Tokyo, Harper's Bazaar in Singapore and Prestige in Hong Kong. Before joining the Post as fashion editor in 2017, Vincenzo was a member of the launch team of Vogue Arabia in Dubai. He covers topics such as jewellery, watches, luxury, beauty, celebrity, entertainment and lifestyle, and has interviewed some of the most influential designers and CEOs in the luxury industry. Vincenzo speaks Italian, French, Japanese and Mandarin, and is a regular at high-profile events such as fashion week in Milan and Paris.

Published Date:2026-08-25