BIELLA AND ITS TERRITORY
Situated in North-East Italy, Biella lies in a splendid landscape of hills and mountains, at the foot of the Alps. Some famous sites in this territory are: the gold reserve of Bessa, the Serra morenic hills, the Burcina park and the Zegna panoramic area.
Biella is the district of excellence of the textile industry, known for high quality cashmere and wool.
A distinctive feature of the Biella region are its furious streams, which are historically important for providing hydrodynamic power for the looms. The water is famous for its “softness“ and therefore specially suited for the needs of textile finishing .
HISTORY
The woollen mill, Lanificio Alfredo Pria is located at the foot of the mountains near river Cervo. The area was well known since 1150 as Ponte della Maddalena, where a bridge connected the town of Biella and the eastern plains. Nearby there was a convent named after Saint Mary Magdalen, where a community of cloistered nuns lived up to 1571, these Cistercian nuns were known, because of the location of the convent, as the Ladies of the Bridge (Signore del Ponte). In 1820 Louis Boussu, a Frenchman from Vienne, the textiles district of Lyon, decided that in that section of the river Cervo the force of the water was ideal to transform it into hydrodynamic energy for the first mechanical looms. And so there he built a factory according to the most modern concepts of the times. At the end of the 19th century, Alfredo Pria first became a partner of the company with Louis’ son, Federico Boussu and then he bought the entire textile company. Alfredo Pria developed the company according to the principles of Manchester, on various levels and organized entirely vertically, from yarn spinning to weaving fabrics and finishing. Lanificio Pria even employed over one thousand workers, and became a name to refer to for the production of woollen textiles, working for the most prestigious names and brands in the international fashion sector.
In the original premises of Lanificio Pria, there still are over a thousand volumes of the history of the textile production for over two centuries, an archive which is a true heritage and today it still attracts scholars and designers.
Today Lanificio Alfredo Pria is an industrial trademark, which originated from the production of textiles for woollen products and now specializes in finished products, fashion accessories, and in particular in the production of high quality scarves, shawls and caps, which are all exclusively made in Italy..
Alfredo Pria is a trademark of excellence in the production of accessories: the history of Alfredo Pria continues.
