Eddie Redmayne, Olympia Napoléon Bonaparte, Ella Richards Fete Loro Piana’s London Reopening

EXHIBITION NIGHT: Loro Piana on Thursday night took over the Royal Academy of Arts for a celebration of the official reopening of its expanded store on New Bond Street.

The brand invited guests to sip Champagne as a string quartet played in the background and then to dine at tables set with decadent floral arrangements in light pink and the brand’s signature color, kummel red.

Inside the large and small Weston Rooms, guests including Academy Award-winning actor Eddie Redmayne and his wife, Hannah Redmayne; Prince Jean-Christophe Napoléon Bonaparte and Princess Olympia Napoléon Bonaparte, as well as British filmmaker Amma Asante and fashion model Ella Richards, were greeted with fragments of the landmark exhibition “If You Know, You Know. Loro Piana’s Quest for Excellence,” which debuted at the Museum of Art Pudong earlier this year.

The stars of the one-night-only museum-grade experience belonged to 11 of the one-off silhouettes designed to showcase Loro Piana’s savoir-faire for the Shanghai exhibition — such as a grand ballgown crocheted in linen, two suits made from a fully embroidered blend of baby cashmere and silk, and the “alpaca waffle,” where chunky yarns of different weights feature bead and sequin embroidery.

A four-screen immersive film depicting the landscape in Inner Mongolia, where the company sources much of its “noble fiber,” Loro Piana’s historic factory in Italy, and curator Judith Clark’s studio in London, offering a behind-the-scenes moment of the brand’s textile production, as well as the skills involved in exhibition making, was being played behind these pieces throughout the night.

Clark, who oversaw the exhibition as well as the installations for the expanded store on New Bond Street, with a total area of 5,650 square feet on one floor, said the experience is aimed at showcasing Loro Piana’s distinct position within the fashion industry.

Unlike many luxury brands, Loro Piana does not traditionally display its creations on the runway. Instead, its reputation is built upon understated luxury, minimalist aesthetics, and a strong focus on skill and savoir faire, Clark explained.

“This amazing opportunity came through conversations with the Museum of Art, because they said no product in the museum. It made my life incredibly exciting. So we decided to make them these kinds of incredible, expressive, one-off silhouettes that each one expressed something of the fiber that it was made from,” she added.

By studying the brand in depth, Clark said Loro Piana stands out among its Italian peers for taking in British influence.

“I think there’s always been a kind of cult of English style in northern Italy. You can find the Loro Piana brothers wearing clothing that is often associated with British style and then adapting it to Italian tailoring, refining it and acknowledging it as a kind of inspiration for sportswear, but with the kind of aristocratic chic, and I think that that is where the Loro Piana style starts,” she added.

London’s cultural leaders, such as Simon Wallis, secretary and chief executive officer of the Royal Academy of Arts; Bettina Korek, CEO of the Serpentine Galleries, and Bengi Ünsal, director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, also attended the evening celebration alongside Inigo Lambertini, ambassador of Italy to the U.K.