After a session with Mr. Leo Rogna earlier this week, we visited Inco an Ermenegildo Zegnasuit (CMT) manufacturing facility in Novara. Here we were shown how this premier high end brand produces the finest suits for their own and many other global brands on contract (such as Armani, Gucci, Tom Ford, and Yves Saint Laurent).

Blog Part 6

After a session with Mr. Leo Rogna earlier this week, we visited Inco an Ermenegildo Zegna suit (CMT) manufacturing facility in Novara. Here we were shown how this premier high end brand produces the finest suits for their own and many other global brands on contract (such as Armani, Gucci, Tom Ford, and Yves Saint Laurent).

Inco is an older facility than the much larger production plant in Switzerland, but still remains competitive and manufactures extremely well made hand produced products.

Inco was established in 1968 and today employees 1,300 people who produce an average of 300 suits a day. On average the suits made here consist of between 30-40 components and require 125-130 steps (separated into operations) to complete. As a result the facility is structured into ten parts and each part covers one major operation and assembly which sees a garment taking approximately five days to move through the plant from start to finish.

The company is so focused on quality and upholding a 5 year guarantee that generally 30-40% of product will be rejected at some stage during the process. Interestingly, every rejected product gets reworked so there are very little seconds. The other aspect that caught our eye was the high level of layering that goes into a suit. This was of interest because much of the woven worsted fabrics we saw being produced were put through a relatively intensive finishing regime to create the perfect handle, yet in some finished suits the layering works against the handle.

Suits made here vary in fabric weights and materials depending on the order but the majority are stitched on a basic 4 points per cm stitch count and most thread used is polycotton.