Cerruti 1881
A Biella wool mill since 1881, and the Paris house Nino Cerruti built from it — mill and maker in one name.
Biella, 1881. From the loom
to the atelier.
The Lanificio Fratelli Cerruti was founded in Biella in 1881 by Antonio Cerruti and his brothers, in the Piedmontese town long famous for the finest Italian wool. Three generations on, Nino Cerruti (born in Biella, 1930) took the family mill in hand — and, rare among clothiers, carried its cloth the whole way through to finished clothes. His first menswear line, Hitman, was shown in 1957.
In 1967 he opened the fashion house Cerruti 1881 in Paris, dressing a generation in soft, unlined Italian tailoring. He sold the fashion house in 2000 to return to the mill; the Lanificio still weaves in Biella today. Nino Cerruti died in 2022.
What the house is.
- 01The Biella mill Since 1881, a wool mill in Italy’s finest cloth town — supplying its own house and tailors worldwide.
- 02Mill and maker One of the few names that both weaves the cloth and cuts the coat — fibre to finish, like Zegna.
- 03Soft Italian tailoring Nino Cerruti’s unlined, fluid jackets helped define modern Italian menswear.
- 04Hitman, 1957 The first men’s line, and the seedbed of the Cerruti 1881 house that followed in 1967.
“The house that weaves the cloth understands the coat before it is cut.”— Anemoia Vestiaire, on Cerruti
Biella wool, understood at source.
Cerruti is, at root, a mill — so the most useful reading sits in our tailoring and cashmere notes, where the properties that make fine cloth behave are set out in full.
We assess each Cerruti piece on the cloth, the cut and the honest condition — and where the label distinguishes the mill from the fashion house, we record it as found.
We make no claim of certification or exact dating beyond what the piece itself carries.
Full measurements and condition are on each product page. Where maker or cloth labelling is present, we record it as found.Why vintage Cerruti
holds.
Cloth of this order was never disposable, and a Cerruti garment carries the mill’s own fibre and finishing. Well-kept pieces show the soft, honest construction that made the house — and they have already lasted.
Buying vintage here is buying proven cloth from a house that wove it.
