It is the first international fashion fair to have reopened its doors after the long (almost 18 months) Covid break, but Pitti Filati – in Florence, in the new headquarters of Stazione Leopolda, with about seventy exhibitors of knitting yarns – found itself immediately to face a new emergency. No longer healthcare, but commercial.
What worries producers and buyers is the increase in the price of many textile fibers, which have soared in recent weeks, starting with cashmere, mohair and silk, but also nylon and acrylic. Plus 30, +40, up to + 50% for cashmere. Wool is also swinging upwards, with growths of around 10%. Added to this are the increase in transport and energy costs, which is slowing down many sectors, and the delays with which goods arrive from the East. The result is the disorientation of companies, struggling with price lists to be adjusted just when they would like to concentrate their forces on recovery after a difficult 2020. Last year the turnover of the Italian spinning industry marked -27.2%, falling just over two billion euros; exports accounted for 32.2% (651 million) and fell by almost 20%.
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This year almost all the producers of Pitti Filati estimate that they will recover half of the lost revenues. Orders are getting going, and at the show there were German and French buyers, some Spaniards, a few Americans and no Oriental. But the real sore point are the raw materials: “Customers still have their heads in the crisis – explains Paolo Todisco, CEO of Biella-based Zegna Baruffa, 70 million in turnover in 2020 (-30%) and the forecast to approach 85 this’ year – and make requests to producers who instead claim the increase in the prices of fibers and the revision of the price lists. Dialogue is not simple ». In any case, Zegna Baruffa has already closed a couple of contracts with large customers, for 250 thousand kilograms of wool yarn, based on the new prices increased from 25 to 27.5 euros per kilo.
At the high end, the cards are shuffled. “The price of our Nube yarn, based on mohair, has gone from 60 euros per kg to 90-100 euros – says Alessandro Bastagli, owner of the Prato-based Lineapiù specialized in fancy yarns, with a turnover of 30 million in 2020 (-25%) with balance sheet closed in surplus – we made a list that is valid until September 30th, then we’ll see ». Lineapiù is about to make its debut in cashmere with a 50% regenerated yarn.
In reality, “customers have not yet understood the effect of prices – says Piergiorgio Cariaggi, owner of the Marche region Cariaggi leader in luxury, 84.2 million in 2020 revenues (-20%) – because for now we have applied small increases and only in autumn we will define the quotations ». Raffaella Pinori, from Prato’s Pinori Filati, who will close 2021 with a turnover of 12 million, up 20% on 2019, is satisfied. “I spread the price increases during the year,” he says. Even Filati Naturali, a company of the Prato-based Pecci group, did not suffer declines in 2020 and will grow this year: «The more structured companies, which can stock, manage to get by even in this phase», says Roberta Pecci.