At Fermo Fossati, grenadine silk still comes off looms over a hundred years old, and the finest Carlo Riva shirtings off wooden ones dating to the 1940s. The reason isn’t nostalgia: those old looms simply run slower than a modern power loom, and that slowness is what lets them handle yarn too delicate for anything faster, producing a drapier, more air-filled cloth no new machine can match.