The Making
The fibre
Along the Nile.
Everything begins with the fibre. Benon uses only long and extra-long-staple Egyptian cotton, in selected grades grown along the Nile, among them Giza 87. For its finest percale, a rare blend of Egyptian, Suvin and Sea Island. The raw cotton is carried to Italy in a wooden casing that holds the right humidity, so nothing of the staple is lost before it is spun.
The cloth
Woven in northern Italy.
The cloth is woven and finished by specialist mills around Bergamo, working in-house from spinning to finishing, so every variable that decides how a cloth feels is held in one place. Two weaves, percale and sateen. Every cotton is combed and every cloth mercerised. Thread counts run from 300 to 710, and thread count is one variable among many; it is the balance of fibre, yarn, weave and finish that is engineered, never a number.
The hands
Cut and sewn in northern Italy.
Each piece of bed and bath linen is cut, sewn and inspected in northern Italy, a few hours from the mill, by hands trained across generations, from the pattern resolved at the atelier in Stockholm. Buttons are Australian mother-of-pearl, or dressed in the cloth itself. Every duvet cover arrives in an envelope of its own cloth, and every piece in a box made and finished in Italy.
Biella
Pure cashmere.
The cashmere is woven and made in Biella, the town that has spun and woven fine fibre for longer than any other in Italy. Two-ply, finished with a soft brushing that raises the surface while keeping the weave clear. The borders are worked entirely by hand in punto cavallo, the looped saddle stitch carried stitch by stitch around all four sides.
Every piece is patterned in Stockholm before it reaches Italy.
