BACK in July of 2015 we had a goal to create the most extreme hand built collection ever presented in Paris for ready to wear, and once again break the barriers in handmade clothing technology. And we did. Here is the place where the fabrics that launched the new super handmade collection came from…

…and the very room where all of them were made, the Colombo family's authentic 18th century wooden hand-looms at Badoere di Morgano, where the story of our groundbreaking GBS handmade fabric collection began with an exclusive relationship with the Colombo family in Badoere di Morgano which began right off with nothing less than a revolution.

You see, the Colombos didn't just weave great fabric. They wove it by hand. All of it. On original 18th century looms that they have carefully kept and maintained for generations. And while it took 2 days working on one of these looms to make enough cloth just to make a single suit, what can be done on those looms is simply another world when it came to fabric. And as we stepped into this new world over a decade ago, it led us into an entirely new way of looking at things, and yes, making things, especially the prototypes for the new collections using these fabrics- which rose so much higher in time, skill and sartorial artistic excellence that it took all other contemporary artisanal designer collections and their pieces, including our own, and simply left them back on the ground.

So while the classic appearance fooled both the superficially-minded buyer and the superficially-minded journalist - the collection we presented over a decade ago in 2015 in Paris was revolutionary. And it set a new standard in classic luxury tailored clothing that challenged every major couture house in the world. There was suddenly something better for this customer. And while the so-called luxury houses were busy buying and selling each other and rebranding and relaunching one bogus "heritage brand concept" after another, GBS has been steadily building a real new heritage brand from scratch. A real one, with a real person behind it. And one that aimed to be one of the greatest of this new century because it was not run by financiers or accountants, it was run by people with one singular vision- to make the best clothes in the world possible today by human beings, bar none.

Above: The designer with the late master weaver Giuseppe "Pino" Colombo working on a new fabric for GBS in 2017 at Badoere di Morgano. The art and innovation of making handmade cloth continues today with his son Carlo Colombo who has created many first in the world fabric designs for GBS as part of its decade-long collaborative partnership with Tessitura La Colombina.

AND nothing represents that vision today more than the pieces that can be found in the collections of GBS designs made with all handwoven Tessitura La Colombina fabric. Each design is a totally new extreme handmade technology piece--using fabric all totally hand woven on a series of original 18th century wooden hand looms that the Colombo family has maintained for centuries.

"It takes 2 days of painstaking work for a person working on the hand loom to create enough fabric for a single garment. Unlike the major luxury 'maison'-brands, our scarcity is not artificial-it's real"

The fabrics now being designed and created by Carlo Colombo have taken us into totally new territory for complexity of hand technologies. For example, it takes 2 days of work for a person working on the hand loom to create enough fabric for a single garment. To achieve extraordinary dark colors , after extensive trials and testing , we found we had to hand dye the fabrics not just once, but twice to get the yarns to go dark enough and hit the amazing patina and softness that is finally achieved. So another 2 full days due to double-hand dye baths were needed just to dye a single piece. Because the hand loom techniques result in looser weaves than with power looms, the fabric is also very different to work with in the sartoria (tailoring rooms), cutting had to be done much more delicately and carefully or the fabric will run and yarns will unravel quickly, our time studies indicate 2-3 times longer to cut a piece in this type of cloth, and at its already high price and value--we cannot afford any mistakes.

LIKEWISE all other operations using hand and machine on this fabric are different, requiring more care, and far more time. Many operations can not be done with machine at all, forcing us to make these pieces some of the most hand-built pieces in our history. 3-4 days on average to make a single jacket. 2-3 days for a single skirt. Incredible details that would be impossible to achieve by another design house or luxury brand on a fabric with such extreme technical demands... entirely handsewn pockets, lace and trim details all around jacket fronts-sleeves-pockets, interior hems on bodies and sleeves, handsewn buttonholes (which initially appeared impossible to achieve on the loosely woven fabric) and loops, buttons, labels, lining attachment seams all around and even the exquisite interior metal chains attached to the bodice hemlines of some superjackets--all by GBS extreme skill handwork.

For more than a decade now since 2015, GBS Tessitura La Colombina design pieces have been earning a unique reputation and building a loyal client following of enthusiasts and collectors for some of the rarest and most extreme handmade clothing technology wardrobe pieces in the world. We invite you to begin to discover some of the latest of these amazing and ultra-personal works here below each created with entirely hand made cloth made only for us-- by the world's greatest handwoven cloth maker--Tessitura La Colombina at Badoere di Morgano in Italy...