Creaky looms in Uzbekistan’s mills left over from the Soviet regime are a far cry from the whirring factory floors in Biella, a rich textile center in northern Italy.
But that’s not deterring a textile entrepreneur there from producing fabrics he hopes will end up being used by Milan’s top fashion houses.
American-born Anthony Silvestri saw the opportunity to produce fabric in the former Communist bloc country last year. Based in Rome, Silvestri visited Uzbekistan to source antique tapestries and ended up touring textile mills.
Together with his business partner, Lucinda Agar-Riccioni, he invested in a small mill located in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, as well as another in the neighboring country of Tajikistan, which will mainly be used for producing carpets. The pair named their company Perchik, which means chili pepper in Russian and doubles as a symbol of the paisley design.
Perchik finished its first collection of fabrics for fall-winter 2007-2008 last summer and has begun garnering attention from fashion houses. The fabric’s design was inspired by Uzbekistan’s national costume and includes densely printed cotton and silk velvets with paisley, floral and geometric patterns, as well as vintage-looking floral, polka dot and geometric printed cottons and silks. The company also produced some satin-finish cottons.
“When we show clients the printed velvets, they are blown away because nobody has seen velvet like this before,” Silvestri said.
“It’s completely unusual,” Agar-Riccioni added. “It’s not ethnic, but it has a strong character to it.”
Prices are in line with goods being sourced from India and China. Printed cottons are from $2 to $8 a meter, velvets $8 to $12 a meter, and silks $8 to $20 a meter.
Though Perchik is courting big brands in the luxury fashion industry, the pair declined to give names.
“These companies are looking beyond Italian textiles because here the costs are just getting higher and higher,” said Silvestri. “But also because they want something different.”
Ancient machinery and working techniques force the 50 workers in the Tashkent mill to print and weave some fabrics by hand. The mill is currently able to produce 5,000 meters of velvet a day. The mill has 40 handlooms dedicated to silk and in 30 days can produce 40 meters of silk. As testament to when Uzbekistan was part of the Silk Road in the fourth century, the country continues to produce silk from cultivation of silkworms in the Ferghana Valley, east of Tashkent.
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“The quality of this silk is absolutely amazing, but they need serious investment in machinery and technology,” he said.
Silvestri believes that Uzbekistan will attract customers sourcing textiles from China and India.
“Prices have gone up in India, and they will in China — a lot of companies are looking to shift,” said Silvestri. “Labor costs in Central Asia are the same as China. The only difference is in Central Asia, there are natural resources — natural gas, oil and water — and that counts in the end.”
He added that Uzbekistan is the seventh-largest cotton producer in the world.
Silvestri and Agar-Riccioni also plan to diversify into angora and cashmere knitwear hand-knitted by Uzbek artisans.