Loro Piana, the ultra-luxury Italian brand owned by LVMH, was placed under judicial administration on July 14, after the Milan Tribunal found evidence of worker exploitation in its Italian supply chain. The 26-page court ruling, reviewed by Glossy, reveals how the brand subcontracted the production of its garments through front companies to Chinese-owned factories in Lombardy. The factories were operating in breach of multiple safety and labor laws.
The court’s findings show a systemic model of outsourcing, where the brand’s official supplier, Evergreen Fashion Group Srl, passed production to two companies with no manufacturing capacity. These firms further outsourced work to unregistered workshops, violating laws on traceability, minimum wage and worker safety. In one police inspection from 2024, authorities discovered makeshift dormitories, 13-hour workdays, no fire exits and hazardous machinery.
According to separate investigations from Reuters, one worker said he was hospitalized for over a month after being beaten for asking for unpaid wages. Two factories were shut down, and over €240,000 (approximately $260,000) in fines were issued.
The court-appointed commissioner concluded that “Loro Piana could not have been unaware” of the conditions in which its garments were made. Internal emails, tech packs, size charts and product samples confirmed the items being made in these factories were destined for Loro Piana. 2022 and 2023 audits commissioned by the brand, conducted by QIMA and Nexia — both third-party quality control and auditing firms — failed to detect the violations because they did not include on-site factory inspections.
When reached for comment, Loro Piano responded with its July 14 statement. In it, Loro Piana acknowledged the Milan court’s notification regarding labor violations by unauthorized subcontractors used by one of its suppliers. The brand claimed it was unaware of these subcontractors until May 20 and ended its relationship with the supplier within 24 hours. It condemned all illegal practices and reaffirmed its commitment to human rights and legal compliance. The company emphasized that it regularly reviews and will continue to strengthen its supply chain audits. It also disputed reported cost figures as unrepresentative of what it paid and pledged full cooperation with authorities in the ongoing investigation.
The ruling places Loro Piana under court administration for one year, with commissioner Micaela Cecca appointed to verify improvements in its supply chain oversight. If the company meets all court conditions, administration could be lifted early, as occurred with Dior (October 2023), Armani (January 2024) and Valentino (April 2024).
The Milan court documents follow a series of escalating issues for Loro Piana. First came the Bloomberg Businessweek investigation in March 2024, which found that the Indigenous community of Lucanas in the Peruvian Andes — Loro Piana’s primary vicuña animal supplier — was receiving just $280 (about $300) per kilo of fiber, down from $420 ($450) in 2012. The fiber is used to make sweaters that retail for $9,000. The Bloomberg report revealed that many villagers worked without pay during annual shearing and had never seen a finished garment made from their wool.
Then, in November 2024, Loro Piana released a centenary book, Master of Fibres, published by luxury book publisher Assouline. The glossy coffee table tome celebrated the brand’s use of rare raw materials and its commitment to craftsmanship. It did not mention labor practices. In May 2025, Loro Piana launched Resilient Threads, a five-year program in Mongolia to support herders and biodiversity. The initiative includes mobile health services, seed banks and grazing protections for the Eastern Steppe.
Despite these projects, the brand did not publicly acknowledge the Italian supply chain violations until the court decision. At LVMH’s April 2025 annual general meeting, Antoine Arnault, chairman of Loro Piana and LVMH communications chief, highlighted a new traceability pilot with platform TextileGenesis. “Traceability and transparency are the fundamental principles that guarantee the excellence of our products,” he told shareholders. TextileGenesis founder Amit Gautam said in a press release that “brands are realizing that consumers now expect verification, not just storytelling.”
In an on-stage talk at the July 2023 Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen, Arnault said, “Luxury products are sustainable by nature. That’s what makes them so special. They are made from the highest quality materials; they are durable; they are repairable. That is what separates us from the rest of the fashion industry.” The court’s findings call that narrative into question.
The Loro Piana judgment was the latest manufacturing scandal to put pressure on Italy’s luxury sector to improve conditions at home. In May 2025, Italian authorities, trade unions and fashion association Confindustria Moda launched a new supply chain accord to combat exploitation. The voluntary protocol promotes transparency via a central supplier database and the creation of a “green list” of compliant factories.
Brooke Roberts-Islam, sustainability expert and author of “The Ganni Playbook,” told Glossy, assumptions around luxury are being tested. “You could quite reasonably deduce that in … the accessible fashion segment, there’s been a lot of stringency, a lot of scrutiny. … Whereas the luxury sector has not seen as much scrutiny,” she said. “Terms like ‘Made in Italy’ or ‘Made in France’ … act as a buffer. … There’s an inference of trust that has come with those sorts of labels. And so, really, there has been less scrutiny, therefore, there has been less action.”
Roberts-Islam, who previously worked with Loro Piana yarns as a knitwear designer, added, “It’s devastating to hear the breadth of this migrant worker exploitation for the creation of what is really a small number of products. … It’s much darker, in some ways, [than in fast fashion]. … There is still this mystique around the luxury sector, and I think that veil is being lifted now.”
“Luxury isn’t inherently sustainable, and marketing can’t clean up a supply chain,” she said.
The Loro Piana case calls to mind past brand-labor controversies, including the 2020 scandal of U.K. fast fashion brand Boohoo, when investigations uncovered labor abuses in Leicester, U.K. Like Loro Piana, Boohoo used intermediaries and claimed ignorance. Independent audits later confirmed the brand had access to information it failed to act on.
This article is based on translated Milan court documents.
