FEW examples of sustainability are more powerful and inspiring than the story of Vicunya protection and cultivation in Peru. While the ancient Inca worshipped, honored and protected the magnificient animals for centuries, the Spanish Conquistadors in the 16th century invaded, slaughtered, and wiped out both the incredible Inca civilization and the Vicunya animals for both profit and greed- killing and skinning the animals for their valuable coats. Under colonial rule, the entire Vicunya population was reduced to only a few thousand animals and by the 1970’s, the Vicunya was listed at the very top of the world’s endangeredspecies list, and on the verge of total extinction.

But after colonial rule ended, a revolutionary program implemented by the new Peruvian government working in collaboration with local communities, established a protection-area sanctuary reserve in the Andesmountains and an economic incentive plan based upon keeping the Vicunya alive and only shearing the hair of the animals (not killing them for their pelts), cultivating the regrowth of their population, guaranteeing a high price for the fleece for the farmers at the local level, and maintaining strict government certification and controls of production methods, quantities, and exports.

The program was extremely successful and by the end of the 1990’s the Peruvian government was able to report that the Vicunya population had been brought back to exceed over several hundred thousand animals, enabling the Vicunya to be taken off the world’s endangered species list--while simultaneously creating a viable and stable economic income for local communities.

Vicunya cultivation may represent a key model in developing sustainable natural technologies and solutions for all of us. It begins to underline a total revaluation of what sustainability really costs in our world and in our approach to clothing and fashion. It confirms that less is more. In fact, over the years now, cultivators in Peru have learned that even though the Peruvian government has set a minimum regrowth gestation period of 2 years before a Vicunya’s hairs can be sheared, quality of the fibres increase dramatically the less often shearing is performed. Higher prices can be obtained by waiting 3 to 4 years or longer, with stories and reports that the best fibres have been obtained by not shearing at all but allowing the animals to naturally shed their hairs when they want to by using wooden blocks which the Vicunya can rub themselves against when they are shedding… allowing the cultivators to pickup the hairs and fibres from the ground as they fall.

"Vicuña” earned its reputation as the “Fleece of the Gods” for its divine properties. It is one of the world's finest fibres. Its 11-13 micron diameter compared to 14-19 micron diameter of the finest cashmeres make it physically finer than virtually any other textile yarn substance. In every aspect of working with it from hand cutting, sewing, treating and finishing it is a miraculously excellent material to create clothing with. Its sheer scarcity contributes to increasing its value, making it all but priceless.

The camelids’ fleeces are shorn by hand or collected along the paths of the high Andean mountain plateaux, where the animals live in the wild. As a result of special agreements with local communities and government authorities, the Fratelli Piacenza woolen mills have developed a reliable and amazingly sustainable and ethical source for Vicunya in Peru, and transform the fibres in Italy to create fabrics of formidable excellence and elegance far beyond other luxury "brands” who have promoted themselves by associating with Vicunya while selling out to corporate interests.

Above: Geoffrey B. Small’s VA1 supercoat in Fratelli Piacenza’s pure Peruvian Vicunya on the runway in Paris during the controversial ”I am not sustainable” collection presentation in March 2019 was one of the first and only pure Vicunya designs to be included in a Paris designer ready to wear collection. It was also one of the most expensive avant-garde pieces ever to be presented, and was part of the designer’s direct protest against an industry that is blatantly greenwashing and misleading consumers by dishonestly jumping on the bandwagon of the sustainable design movement which the designer had pioneered decades before.

As a result of client requests, GBS has begun to work with and develop special VIP designs in Fratelli Piacenza pure Vicunya fabric and in March 2019 introduced one of the first and only pure Vicunya prototype design concepts in a Paris designer ready to wear collection as part of the controversial ”I am not sustainable” collection in a direct reaction to the fashion industry’s blatant greenwashing and its false and misleading adoption of the sustainable and environmental design movement and its practices which GBS has quietly lead and pioneered for d

*Note: growth in animal population and demand has led to the poaching and killing of the Vicunya by illegal operators and the blatant economic exploitation by large luxury brand conglomerates of Peruvian communities who raise and cultivate the animals. GBS and Fratelli Piacenza are using only legally cultivated Vicunyafibre products with full certification documentation, purchased from independent communities at agreed fair market pricing. No one should buy, trade or sell un-certified or exploited community Vicunyafibre products anywhere.