Loro Piana is using Milan Design Week 2026 to launch Studies, a new long-form exhibition framework devoted to interior objects and the processes behind them. The inaugural chapter, On the Plaid, opens to the public at Cortile della Seta, the house’s Milan headquarters, from April 21 to 26

Twenty-four plaids are presented as individual studies, each one differentiated by technique, construction, pattern, and finish. The selection spans the house’s full material hierarchy, from Vicuna and Baby Cashmere to The Gift of Kings, Loro Piana Royal Lightness, linen, and newer fabrics including Wish wool and Pecora Nera wool. Techniques across the collection include needle punching, applique, hand embroidery, hand loom weaving, Jacquard weaving, and screen printing, each producing a distinct surface and rhythm.

The exhibition is structured into five thematic sections. Loro Piana Sceneries opens the sequence with plaid compositions evoking Valsesia, the Piedmontese valley where the house was founded in 1924, extending outward to mountain environments associated with winter sports and overland travel. Codes of the House follows, tracing two of the Maison’s signature visual motifs: the Belt, originally developed as a ready-to-wear lining, and the Suitcase Stripe, a pattern first commissioned by Franco Loro Piana for personal travel luggage and later carried by sales representatives transporting fabric samples to clients.

The third section, Botanic Repertoire, centres on the thistle, a flower present in the house’s coat of arms since 1951 and historically used to raise the surface of wool and cashmere fabrics during finishing. Flax appears alongside it, marking the seasonal dimension of linen within the collection. Cardo Paisley follows, drawing on archive references from the late 1960s when paisley first entered Loro Piana’s fabric range, allowing the motif to be reinterpreted across different techniques and scales. The sequence closes with Textured Abstractions, where composition is driven entirely by surface structure, fibre density, and volume rather than graphic motifs.

The scenography, designed as a winding path through Cortile della Seta’s main gallery, uses wooden display structures built in three tones of oak. Joinery and support elements are left visible rather than concealed, and each plaid is suspended from the framework to allow the fabric to hang freely. The effect is closer to a textile exhibition than a conventional product display, with raw fibre and yarn shown alongside the finished pieces to make the transformation from material to object legible at each stage.

Each plaid in the collection is produced upon request, positioning them as commissioned objects with an individual dimension. Studies is conceived as an ongoing framework, with future chapters to address other specific objects and functions within Loro Piana’s interior vocabulary.

For a house that has spent four decades treating the plaid as a site of material research, Studies gives the object the space it has always warranted.

Studies, Chapter I: On the Plaid

Cortile della Seta, Via Montenapoleone 3, Milan

April 21 to 26, 2026. Open daily 10am to 8pm.