Reda 1865: 160 Years of Italian Merino Excellence — The Complete Collection Guide
There are mills that make fabric, and then there are mills that define what fabric can be. Reda 1865 is firmly in the second category. Founded in 1865 in Valle Mosso, in the heart of the Biella textile district, Reda has spent 160 years mastering a single material — Merino wool — and turning that mastery into one of the most comprehensive and admired fabric collections in the global made-to-measure industry.
At MTM.Design, we include Reda 1865 in our supplier network because our partners deserve access to the real thing: fabric sourced from mills that own their wool supply chain from farm to bolt, that hold B Corporation certification, and that bring genuine Italian craft to every metre they produce. Reda is all of those things — and it organises its offer into a clear, navigable set of fabric books that make the collection easy to work with for both brands and their clients.
Here is a complete guide to every book in the Reda collection.
Heritage: From a Biella Valley Mill to the World
Reda's story begins with Carlo Reda, who founded the mill in Valle Mosso in 1865. The Botto Poala family took stewardship in 1919 and has guided the company ever since — through two world wars, a catastrophic 1968 flood that destroyed the original facility, and the full sweep of Italian industrial history. Today, Reda is run by the fifth generation of the same family.
What makes Reda genuinely unusual — even among Italy's finest mills — is its vertical integration. Reda owns three sheep farms in New Zealand (Otamatapaio, Rugged Ridges, and Glenrock — totalling over 74,000 acres and 30,000 Merino sheep), controls its own fibre processing, spinning, and weaving, and finishes every fabric at its Biella mill. The result is a supply chain with complete traceability and quality control at every stage: from the grass the sheep graze on to the swatch that arrives on your cutting table.
In 2020, Reda became the first textile company in Italy — and one of the first in the world — to achieve B Corporation certification, a rigorous third-party standard for social and environmental performance. In 2025, the company celebrated its 160th anniversary with new collection launches at Milano Unica, reaffirming its position as one of the industry's enduring pillars.
The Reda Book Set: A Complete Guide
Reda organises its made-to-measure offering into distinct fabric books, each focused on a specific end-use, fabric construction, or fiber profile. This structure makes it straightforward for brands and tailors to navigate the collection and select the right cloth for each client.
110's SUIT
The 110's Suit book is the foundation of the Reda made-to-measure collection — a curated selection of Super 110's Merino wool suitings designed for everyday professional wear. Super 110's sits at the sweet spot of luxury and durability: fine enough to feel genuinely premium, robust enough to survive the rigours of daily business life without losing its shape or surface quality.
The fabrics in this book are all-season in character — medium weights that work from September through to May across most climates — woven in Reda's classic Biella worsted style: clean surface, precise construction, excellent drape. The colour palette covers the essential professional wardrobe: navies, charcoals, mid-greys, and a selection of subtle patterns including pin stripes, chalk stripes, and fine overchecks.
For brands building a made-to-measure suiting programme at the accessible luxury level — suits in the €1,200–€2,500 range — the 110's Suit book is the natural starting point. Quality that justifies the price, variety that covers every client preference.
130's SUIT
The 130's Suit book steps up in fineness to Super 130's Merino wool — a thread count that delivers noticeably softer hand, finer surface texture, and a slightly elevated drape compared to the 110's range. This is the book for clients who want to feel the difference, not just be told about it.
Super 130's is one of the most versatile grades of fine suiting wool: fine enough to be genuinely luxurious, with a weave density that maintains excellent tailoring performance. The 130's Suit book at Reda covers both plains and subtle patterns — the building blocks of a refined professional and business wardrobe — with the characteristic Biellese finishing that gives Reda cloths their particular brightness and hand.
This book is ideal for the mid-luxury segment of a made-to-measure programme: for brands whose clients are ready to invest in a suit that is clearly, perceptibly better than what they could buy off the rack.
CEREMONY SELECTION
The Ceremony Selection is Reda's dedicated book for formal and occasion wear — the suits, morning coats, and evening pieces that mark life's most significant moments. Launched with a striking AI-driven digital campaign that reimagines the experience of ceremony from invitation to memory, this book demonstrates Reda at its most creative.
The Ceremony Selection features fabrics with refined surface qualities suited to formal tailoring: fine plains in classic formal colourways (charcoal, black, midnight navy), subtle textures that photograph beautifully, and the kind of drape that makes a morning suit or dinner jacket look authoritative and distinguished. All fabrics are made from fine Merino wool, with attention to the specific construction requirements of ceremonial garments — cloths that hold their structure through a long wedding day or a formal evening without wilting.
For brands offering wedding suiting, formal hire programmes, or occasion MTM, the Ceremony Selection provides fabrics that meet the occasion.
150's SUIT
The 150's Suit book represents Super 150's Merino wool — the highest thread count in the Reda core suiting range, and the choice for clients who want the finest possible everyday suit fabric. At Super 150's, the fibre is so fine that the finished cloth has qualities closer to cashmere than to conventional wool: extraordinary softness, a silky surface handle, and a drape that flows rather than falls.
These are fabrics for the client who knows quality and expects the best. The 150's Suit book covers both classic and contemporary suiting weights, with colour and pattern options suited to high-level professional dressing and special occasions. The construction at Super 150's requires more careful handling in tailoring — these cloths reward experienced craftspeople — but the results justify every consideration.
For the ultra-premium tier of a made-to-measure programme, the 150's Suit book is Reda's flagship answer.
CASHMERE & 150's FLANNEL
The Cashmere & 150's Flannel book is Reda's luxury cold-weather suiting collection — bringing together two of the most prized cloth categories in tailoring: pure cashmere and Super 150's flannel.
Cashmere suiting is a relatively rare and genuinely extraordinary category. Cashmere's exceptional softness and warmth, combined with the structure required for tailored construction, demands considerable technical expertise to achieve — and Reda, with its deep wool knowledge, executes it beautifully. These are fabrics for the winter suit that a client reaches for when they want to feel exceptional.
The 150's Flannel component of this book pairs the fineness of Super 150's Merino with flannel's distinctive softly-raised surface finish — the classic gentleman's winter suiting cloth, elevated to its finest possible expression. Heavy enough to provide warmth, fine enough to drape elegantly, and finished with the napped surface that gives flannel its unmistakable visual and tactile character.
This book speaks directly to clients who appreciate traditional tailoring values — the kind of client for whom a flannel suit in November is a considered pleasure rather than merely a practical choice.
FLANNEL JACKET & SUIT
The Flannel Jacket & Suit book is a broader exploration of the flannel tradition — covering both suit weights and lighter jacket weights in a range of Merino wool flannels across the classic flannel spectrum. Where the Cashmere & 150's Flannel book focuses on the ultra-premium end, this book covers the full functional range of this important cloth category.
Flannel is one of tailoring's great fabrics: the softly napped surface absorbs light rather than reflecting it, giving garments a quiet, understated elegance that highly finished worsteds cannot replicate. It creases with character rather than against itself. It ages beautifully. And in Reda's Biella production, it achieves a fineness and softness that distinguishes Italian flannel from its heavier British counterparts.
The Flannel Jacket & Suit book includes weights appropriate for year-round wear in temperate climates, as well as heavier constructions for serious cold-weather dressing. The colour range covers the classic flannel palette — medium greys, charcoals, navies, and the warm tonal mid-tones that make flannel so compelling — alongside seasonal additions.
HOPSACK & KNIT EFFECT
The Hopsack & Knit Effect book introduces two of the most important open-weave fabric categories for contemporary tailoring: hopsack and knit-effect constructions.
Hopsack is a basket weave — two yarns crossing over two yarns in both directions — that produces a fabric with distinctive open texture, excellent breathability, and a casual but refined character. It is the classic warm-weather suiting and jacketing cloth: structured enough for a business meeting, relaxed enough for a summer Saturday. Reda's hopsacks bring Biellese precision to this traditionally British construction, with a clean, modern execution that works in both classic and contemporary wardrobes.
The knit-effect fabrics in this book take the visual character of knitwear and achieve it through weaving — producing cloths with the texture and softness of a fine jersey, but with the structure and tailoring performance of woven fabric. These are fabrics for the modern professional who wants to blur the line between formal and casual without crossing it entirely.
Together, this book covers the relaxed-luxury and smart-casual tier of a made-to-measure programme — the casual wear and unstructured tailoring offer that modern brands need alongside their formal suiting range.
MILANO JACKET
The Milano Jacket book is one of the most characterful in the Reda collection — a direct evocation of 1980s Milanese style and the bold, confident aesthetic that made Italian fashion the global reference in that era.
This book features fabrics in Super 130's fineness — soft to the touch, with a diverse palette of patterns and colours designed for the jacket, not the suit. Where the suit books prioritise versatility and professional appropriateness, the Milano Jacket book celebrates individuality: stronger patterns, richer colours, weave structures that create surface interest and visual energy.
The fabrics here are conceived for unlined or half-lined jackets — the modern Italian jacket that is as comfortable as a fine garment can be while still conveying unmistakable elegance. Think bold Prince of Wales, rich herringbones, interesting micro-fancies, and colour combinations that speak of Via Montenapoleone at its most confident.
For brands with clients who dress with intention and want their jacket to do the talking, the Milano Jacket book delivers.
MILANO JACKET VOL II
Milano Jacket Vol II continues the aesthetic conversation of its predecessor, expanding the range of available compositions and constructions. Where the original Milano Jacket book focuses on the worsted wool tradition, Vol II introduces a broader material palette:
Silk jacketing — for unparalleled luxury and lustrous surface quality, ideal for occasions and evening wear.
Linen jacketing — for warm-season dressing at its most Italian: natural texture, breathability, and the relaxed elegance that only linen can deliver.
Wool jacketing — continuing the worsted tradition of the first book, with new patterns and colours for clients who return to the Milano Jacket aesthetic season after season.
All three compositions share the hallmark of the Milano books: iconic Italian style, worn with poise and confidence. This book extends the range to serve clients across every season and every level of formality within the jacket category.
WOOL SILK LINEN JACKET
The Wool Silk Linen Jacket book is built around the most refined of natural fiber combinations — three-way blends of wool, silk, and linen that bring together the structural qualities of worsted wool, the luminosity of silk, and the textural character of linen in a single cloth.
These are technically accomplished fabrics — the blending and weaving of three distinct fiber types in balanced proportions requires real expertise to achieve a cloth that expresses the qualities of all three without being dominated by any one. When it works — and in Reda's hands it does — the result is extraordinary: a jacket fabric that has the body to hold its shape, the sheen to catch the light, and the surface interest of a textile that rewards close inspection.
The Wool Silk Linen book is for clients who think about fabric — who will notice the blend, appreciate the execution, and understand that their jacket is made from something genuinely rare. It is also the natural home of the resort wardrobe: fabrics that travel beautifully to warm destinations and work from a yacht deck to a beach dinner.
MERINO SHIRT & JERSEY
The Merino Shirt & Jersey book extends the Reda offer beyond traditional suiting and jacketing into the category of fine knitwear and performance shirting — fabrics made from the same exceptional Merino wool that defines the rest of the collection, but engineered for different applications.
The Merino shirting fabrics combine the natural temperature regulation and softness of Merino with constructions optimised for shirt-making — lightweight, smooth, and comfortable against the skin in a way that no synthetic shirt fabric can approach. For brands offering a complete made-to-measure wardrobe rather than just suits, Merino shirting fills a genuinely important gap.
The jersey components of this book bring Merino's natural stretch and breathability to knitwear constructions — fabrics that can be used for fine polo shirts, knit jackets, and the increasingly popular category of jersey suiting: tailored garments made from woven-jersey fabrics that offer suit-like appearance with leisure-wear comfort.
This book serves brands building casual wear programmes or complete wardrobe MTM offers that include separates, shirts, and knitwear alongside traditional tailoring.
FOLDERS
The Folders collection is the companion format to the book set — the same fabrics from across the Reda bunch collection presented in a compact, practical folder format designed for high-volume made-to-measure environments where space and ease of navigation matter.
The Folders format makes it easier for client-facing teams to present the full Reda range without the visual weight of a complete book set — ideal for trunk shows, pop-up events, and situations where portability is a priority. Every fabric available in the book format is available in the Folders, ensuring that clients always have access to the complete Reda collection regardless of how it is presented.
Reda's Founding Values, Carried Forward
Two qualities define Reda across every book in the collection: sustainability and Made in Italy craft.
On sustainability, Reda's credentials are unmatched: B Corporation certification since 2020, farms owned and managed directly in New Zealand, the Re.Verso™ upcycled wool programme, and a production model that controls every stage of the supply chain for traceability and accountability.
On craft, Reda's vertical integration is the guarantee. From the fleece to the finished cloth, every decision is Reda's — and every decision reflects 160 years of accumulated knowledge about what makes a great Merino wool fabric.
Why MTM.Design Partners with Reda 1865
At MTM.Design, the Reda collection covers virtually every made-to-measure suiting and jacketing need a brand could have — from the entry-level luxury of the 110's Suit book through to the ultra-premium 150's and Cashmere ranges, from formal Ceremony fabrics through to the casual relaxation of Hopsack and Knit Effect, and on to the complete lifestyle offer of shirts and jersey.
This breadth, combined with the consistency of Italian quality, the trust that the Reda name carries with informed clients, and the sustainability story that modern luxury consumers increasingly value, makes Reda one of the most important names in our supplier network.
Explore the full Reda collection, or contact MTM.Design to discuss building your programme around Reda fabrics.
Sources: [1] Reda 1865 Book Set — https://www.reda1865.com/row/book-set
[2] Reda 1865 Listing — https://www.reda1865.com/row/listing
[3] Reda 1865 Heritage — https://www.reda1865.com/row/a-family-story
[4] Reda on Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reda_(fabric_mill)
[5] WWD – Reda 160th Anniversary — https://wwd.com/business-news/business-features/reda-160-anniversary-2025-milano-unica-collection-1237956161/
