Our manufacturing
From seed to garment
Scroll slowly: this is the journey every Opera Campi garment makes, from the field to your home. It all begins with choosing the seed: not every hemp seed gives a fine yarn, so we only use selected varieties.
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The finest raw material
Like Belgian linen, Egyptian cotton or Mongolian cashmere, hemp has its own homeland: the finest quality grows in China, in the fields of Heilongjiang. Here, on the black soils near the Nemor river, the Dragon variety grows without pesticides.
Discover where our hemp comes from
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Sowing
Quality hemp needs a lot of land, large machinery and water close by. Open fields as far as the eye can see, where the right humidity and fertile soil already decide the quality of the yarn.
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Growth
Hemp grows thick and fast, with no need for pesticides. When the stalks reach about 2.5 metres it is time to cut: tall, straight stalks are the ones that give the longest fibres.
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The harvest
The cut stalks are gathered with large machines and tied into bundles, ready for retting. That is why the best fields lie close to water and to the spinning mill.
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Retting
The bundles are left to ret in water: with time, the fibre slowly comes away from the woody part of the stalk. Then the stalks are scutched, beaten to separate the fibre from the wood.
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Spinning
The fibre is scraped and combed into a blond tuft, like a lock of hair. Then it is wet-spun: this is how a long-staple yarn is born, fine and strong, which we have tested in the lab.
Sea transport
The yarn leaves in containers, on a ship: weeks at sea, all the way to Italy. From here on, every remaining step happens in Italy.
The yarn has arrived in Italy.
Now it's your choice: what would you like to see it become? The same yarn becomes both our knitwear and our fabrics.
The knitwear journey
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Dyeing
If the garment is coloured, the yarn goes to a dye house in Varese, where it is dyed thread by thread with colour formulas we developed ourselves. It is a more expensive process, but the colour is richer and lasts longer.
Transport to Parma
The dyed yarn reaches Sorbolo, near Parma: the workshop where all our hemp knitwear has been made since 2017.
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Knitting
Our knitter works the yarn on a Shima Seiki machine, which knits it needle after needle. Hemp is not elastic: over the years we have adapted machines and techniques especially for it.
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Linking
The pieces are joined on a linking machine: each stitch of the edge is placed by hand on a needle, one after another. A job of patience, done by hand.
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Washing
Fresh off the machine, hemp knit is very stiff. We wash it with Macera, our secret recipe: a water-based solution and dedicated machines that make it softer than you'd expect. And there's your sweater.
The fabric journey
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Dyeing
The yarn goes to Varese, where it is dyed thread by thread with our own colour formulas: it costs more than piece dyeing, but the colour is richer and lasts longer. Only our Zero garments stay natural, undyed.
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Weaving
In our Varese weaving workshop the yarn becomes fabric on shuttle looms, one weft pass after another. Few people work with hemp: the looms have to be adapted, and we have been doing it for years together with our weavers.
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Finishing
A few kilometres away, finishing stabilises the fabric and makes it softer and more beautiful, with special formulas we invented. It is the final touch, the one you feel as soon as you touch it.
Transport to Parma
The fabric is ready and leaves Varese for Parma, home of our studio.
Cutting
In Parma the fabric is laid out and cut with special industrial machines, following patterns we design ourselves.
Transport to Reggio Emilia
The cut pieces go to Reggio Emilia, to the sewing workshop. All our workshops are less than 30 km from the studio.
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Sewing
Sewing hemp is difficult and few people do it: for years we have worked with the same tailors, between Parma and Reggio Emilia. Every pair of pants is sewn with the utmost tailoring care, one at a time.
Transport to the studio
Ten minutes by road: a van takes the sweater from the workshop to our studio in Parma.
A van brings the pants from Reggio Emilia to our studio in Parma: just a few kilometres, no warehouse in between.
Quality control
In our Parma studio every garment is checked by hand, seam by seam. In 40% of cases it isn't right and goes back to the tailor or the knitter: not because they aren't skilled, but because hemp is very complex to work. For a garment that lasts, this check is essential.
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Packing
Once it has passed the check, every garment is folded and packed by hand in kraft paper. The packaging is only there to protect it: simple, recyclable or compostable.
Shipping
Into the DHL envelope, on its way to you, wherever you are. We make everything to order: on average it takes 9 days from order to delivery.
That's all.
No secrets (well, apart from a couple of recipes): just many careful hands, one after another.
