Meet Our Friend: Marco Ferrabue of Canclini

Marco Ferrabue is a textile expert for Italian luxury mill, Canclini, where they produce some of the finest fabrics in the world, including the incredibly soft cotton for our Norfield Print. Throughout his career, Marco has been involved in textile production from fiber to finished product. Marco first began his career in textile production where he learned full operations of a loom. He then spent five years learning the intricate process of twisting yarns to produce luxurious, high quality fabrics. He later gained experience as a textile buyer and has a wealth of knowledge in the dyeing and finishing processes of fabrics. Today, Marco is Canclini’s Export Manager for The United States and Canada. Marco is instrumental in curating the Canclini line for Ledbury, by providing trend forecasts and recommendations to create top of the line shirts. He was also instrumental in helping CEO Paul Trible plan a surprise engagement in Marco's Northern Italian hometown of Bergamo. IF YOU WEREN’T SELLING FABRICS, WHAT WOULD YOU BE DOING? Since I was born I have had a passion for cars and motors, in my dreams I was an expert car driver and mechanic but today what that really relaxes me mostly after a long day is cooking and test new recipes: I would be probably be running an own restaurant, a small one but genuine, with a great cantina of wines in back. WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR 20 YEAR OLD SELF? When you are 20 years old you don’t really care about advice, you are young, healthy, with lot of energy, but this is the right time to use all of yourself for school, you have to study and get your degree and hopefully a master in the field that really you really like, where you can do your best: I made a mistake, when I was 19 I decided not to continue with university and I started working as a weaver, a blue-collar, working by shifts day and night for a famous Italian weaving mill. Today I can say something about fabrics because technically I touched, I lived in the deepness of the production and I have a great position in a very famous Italian mill but I feel I miss something and I’m really sorry for that, I missed a train that won’t pass again. WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF PERFECT HAPPINESS? It may sound banal but my idea of perfect happiness is family: I've got two kids and being married for 18 years – seeing them healthy, happy and really close each other is highest happiness I’m grateful for.

Find out more about Canclini here. Shop The Norfield Print here. Photos by Kate Magee.