If you have ever seen or owned a traditional sheepskin coat or sheepskin jacket, please be aware that our shearling coats have very little similarity’s to them. Sheepskin coats are made from old sheep whose skins are very stiff & have course hair that becomes matted incredibly quickly. The comparison would be high street clothes compared to top designer clothes, there is no comparison. Designer Italy’s garments actually become even more comfortable the more you wear them, as they become even softer & mould to your bodyshape without stretching. Our Shearling coats, & gilets start as unfinished hides from Italian or Spanish lamb, this is decided each season depending on who has the best quality each season. Enrico Bladeri our highly experienced buyer who has made many contacts in his years in the business, has first choice of the A grade hides. He chose’s only skins that will provide us with the lightest, softest and most supple designs possible. The leather finish is achieved through a process at the tannery. Tanning is the process of treating an animal skin to make its surface more pliable, as well as to create different colours and textured effects. All skins used in producing any garment are strictly by-products of the food industry and their use does not impact on any known ecological issues. Lightweight shearling lambskin required over 60 manual procedures and are crafted entirely by hand using environmentally friendly production techniques. The subtle variations and nuances of shading are natural properties unique to shearling and are not to be considered imperfections. All skins are dyed in batches by hand so every batches color may vary slightly. Please note this may mean that the actual garment finished colors may vary from those shown in the garment photos. It takes sharp eyes and highly trained hands to make the most of such delicate materials. Each skin used by us must be processed through more than 60 manual operations, all by an experienced tanner. Each process is still done by hand as it has been for hundreds of years. Our skins are then carefully sorted and matched to ensure a uniformity of appearance and colour. The garment is cut, with each piece of each part planned out to fit to together perfectly, as if in a jig-saw puzzle. The edges of every piece of the pattern are sheared to ensure flat and even seams. When it comes to sewing, there is no assembly line or section work: each garment is painstakingly sewn together by a single operator, with some styles taking an entire day to complete. After sewing, all the seams are trimmed and the wool surface is combed out so that the inside of the garment has a neat and even appearance (after all, there is no lining to hide behind!). Finally, each design is cleaned, pressed and vacuumed to remove as much of the loose wool-hair and suede fiber as possible. All our shearling products are exclusively treated with a protect spray prior to leaving our studios. This process offers a very good level of soil and water repellency which increases the wearability of a garment. We recommend an annual application to help maintain the integrity of your garment.