Frassino

Frassino is the Italian name for the ash tree. It is a house of men's knitwear, knitted in Italy and sold in the United States, in dollars. I am Federico Vivian, and I designed this collection because I wanted a sweater I could not buy.

Fall/Winter 2026–27 is two hundred and fifty numbered pieces. Three sweaters, Il Girocollo, Il Dolcevita and La Mezza Zip, each in two-ply cashmere or in two-ply extrafine merino, in four colours: beluga, beige, cream and gray. La Sciarpa, knitted in cashmere and in vicuna and in natural shades alone, sits outside the two hundred and fifty.

Nothing is knitted until it has been paid for. The house holds no stock, so no piece is made that nobody wanted, and there is never a sale. The pieces of Fall/Winter 2026–27 are delivered in January 2027.

Every sweater is knitted at 12 gauge, fully fashioned and hand linked. Fully fashioned means each panel is knitted to its shape: at the armhole and the neck, stitches are moved inward as the panel narrows, rather than the panel being cut from a wider sheet of knitting. The marks are still there along the armhole if you look.

Hand linked means the collar, the shoulders and the side seams are joined loop by loop, by a person, at a linking machine. An overlocked seam leaves a cord inside the garment. A linked seam is a flat row you can barely feel. Linking is also why a band can be tall without being stiff.

Every rib is a 2x2, two stitches knit and two purl: collar, cuff, hem and placket. It has more depth than a 1x1 and comes back better after it has been stretched. The neck band is twice the usual height. On Il Girocollo it is a 4 cm band linked to the body. Il Dolcevita is a 36 cm tube folded once to 18 cm, so it stands, and the fold is left soft rather than pressed. La Mezza Zip has an 8 cm standing collar, a 20 cm brass zip in a 3 cm placket, a knitted garage over the top of the teeth and a horn pull. It is the only hardware on the garment.

The cashmere is spun by Cariaggi, two ply, Nm 2/28. The merino is extrafine, two ply, Nm 2/30, spun in Biella. Every colour in a run is knitted from one dye lot, because two lots of the same shade can differ by enough to show as faint bars where two panels meet, and that cannot be put right after knitting. So the yarn for a colour is ordered all at once.

Each of the two hundred and fifty pieces carries a number inside the neck label, and the same number goes by hand into a bound register: number, piece, yarn, colour, size, date. One sequence runs across the whole drop, one to two hundred and fifty, and carries on into the next drop rather than starting again. The register, the label and the card in the box say the same number.

A piece weighs 400 to 420 grams finished at size M. It is washed cold by hand and dried flat. It comes to you with the duties already paid, and if the size is wrong the house exchanges it, free, within 30 days.