‘Queen of Cashmere’ Biagiotti dies at 73

Rome: Italian fashion designer Laura Biagiotti, who pioneered the marketing of cashmere products in places such as China and the former Soviet Union, has died aged 73, her company said on Friday.

The veteran designer suffered brain damage following a heart attack late on Wednesday, and died early on Friday the AGI agency said.

The Laura Biagiotti brand is known for its fine knitwear and loose clothes as well as perfumes, accessories and watches.

Dubbed the “Queen of Cashmere”, her company said it uses 50,000 kilogrammes (£110,000) of the fine soft wool every year to make its clothes.

She was also one of the first to market Western collections to other parts of the world, staging fashion shows in China in 1988 and in the former Soviet Union in 1995.

In a 2015 interview to mark her 50 years in the industry she said that fashion could play a role in changing societies.

“In China, in 1988, we understood that after so many years during which clothing had united, unified women and men, they all wanted to express their own individuality,” she told business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. She began her career in 1965 when she joined her mother Delia, who had just opened a dressmaking business in Rome.