Carissimi
Designed in Scandinavia, Made in Italy
Every once in a while, a brand goes above and beyond with its product. Carissimi did just that.
Leveraging the expertise of Umbria Verde, a well regarded Italian knitwear manufacturer that specializes in fine and ultrafine knits, and that gained “menswear aficionado” popularity after Simon Crompton covered it years ago on his blog, Carissimi took it a step further.
Instead of just spec’ing another collection of 18-22 gauge ultrafine merino wool garments, Carissimi and Umbria Verde used a converted cotton knitting machine that could knit yarns into 37 gauge panels.
In hindsight, Using Loro Piana’s Wish yarn, a 15,5 micron Merino wool, seems like an obvious choice, and it leads to a unique hand feel. The quarter zip that Carissimi sent over feels a lot more like a fine suit cloth than knitwear because the stitches per inch are so dense that it feels smooth to the touch. I am saying this after comparing it to a few 18-gauge mock necks that I have in the same Loro Piana Wish merino wool yarn.
TLDR
It is an impressive technical achievement that delivers the smoothest Merino knitwear I have encountered. I include the mainstream luxury brand offerings in this comparison.
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This item was gifted, but as with previous items, I only accept gifted products when they are in line with a baseline level of quality and craftsmanship requirements.