Lanificio Bottoli: infinite fabric patterns

A history spanning five generations, from 1861 to today

The beginning of the history of Lanificio Bottoli dates back to ‘800, more precisely to 1861, when the wool mill was founded in the Vittorio Veneto area, by the Bottoli family who still manage the company with the same passion that has characterized the five generations of Venetian entrepreneurs.

The business initially was focused on the production of wool blankets and cloths, to which were added, year after year and thanks to the structure with a complete internal production cycle, fabrics for men’s clothing.

In 1949 Tito Bottoli, father of the current owner, led the growth of the company with the development of its factories along the Meschio river, in a place of great historical importance as a military school of the Serenissima of Venice, which then fell into the hands of the Austro-Hungarian and later Italian Empire and in which the perimeter defense walls are still visible.

Decade after decade, Lanificio Bottoli has established itself as a reality of excellence in textile production, maintaining faith in the use of natural raw materials for the creation of exclusive, patterned fabrics as a testimony to the love for Italian beauty and style.

Lanificio Bottoli today covers a production area of ​​5,000 square meters and exports to 21 countries. As evidence of the stages of this success, Lanificio Bottoli offers the company’s visitors the opportunity to consult a historical archive of great cultural value, with more than 500,000 variants and in which the fabrics are collected and classified, since 1861, by type: from flannels, Cheviot and Saxony of the early 1900 to Lambswool, Shetland and Tweed, with all the magic and beauty of a art that in Bottoli has been handed down for five generations.

Creativity, quality and service

These three characteristics distinguish the Bottoli collections that it presents, every season, with 30 different new fabrics in 2,500 variations of design and color.

The company is internationally renowned for its patterned fabrics for mainly men’s jackets and coats, in which elegance and color are characterizing elements, drawing inspiration from tailoring classics reinterpreted in a modern way.

At the base of the success of the wool mill there is the vertical complete cycle production that allows to control and manage the quality of each phase of the process of the carded wool fabrics, starting from the selection of the best raw materials which include: Merino wools from Australia or South America, Falkland, as well as European with the Spanish, English and Italian, and finally the Chinese or Iranian cashmere.

The results are precious and elegant fabrics with an original and recognizable style thanks to the design, the skilful use of colors. Real excellence as shown by the Shetland fabrics, the Donegals, the Knickerbockers and the many valuable varieties of Bottoli’s offer.

Product research as a key to sustainability

The constant search for innovative fabrics, the enhancement of Made in Italy craftsmanship excellence and sensitivity towards the territory and the environment constitute the common thread that connects the past, present and future of the company.

For years, in fact, Lanificio Bottoli has started a process to reduce its environmental impact through the use of chemicals in fabric processing, with the search for natural fibers and with the use of renewable sources for electric energy, with consequent savings also generated by the absence of dyeing. 

Among the most distinctive activities in this area are, for example, the company is specialized in vegetable dyeing, such as catechu or the innovative dye that reuses coffee grounds.

A further avant-garde activity that Bottoli supports is the enhancement of Italian autochthonous breeds and their peculiarities, also through the use of undyed wool or natural color.

Since 2000, in fact, following trips between Abruzzo, Molise, Marche and Puglia, the company has invested in the protection of the cultural and artisan heritage linked to the production of local wool obtained from the best flocks of Italian merino sheep of the Sopravvissana and Gentile di Puglia breeds. Thus was born the aspiration to create an excellent 100% Italian fabric right from the raw material, obtained at 0km, which was called LANAITALIANA® Lifestyle.

Furthermore, few are aware of the fact that the ancestor of all modern sheep breeds is the mouflon whose natural color is dark, while the white sheep we usually think of are the result of crossbreeding of races obtained centuries ago to allow to dye the collected wool more easily.

Starting from the discovery of a New Zealand island in which a flock that lives in the wild, generation after generation and despite being descended from white sheep, has returned to its primitive color, the company has decided to invest in dark specimens of merino. 

Thanks to the advice and support of the breeders, Bottoli was able to select the chromatic shades of the fleeces, from white to dark brown through the intermediate tones of noisette, tobacco and cocoa, to produce fabrics in natural shades without resorting to any dyeing or chemical treatment.