New collection
Avant Toi
An Italian label with a French name, born in Genoa in 1994, built on a single idea: painting cashmere.
Avant Toi is the work of Fiorella and Mirko Ghignone, sister and brother, she at the head of the company, he at its creative direction. The label grew out of Liapull, the family knitwear atelier founded by their mother, Lia Gambetta, who started with a single knitting machine and the most basic yarns before moving up to cashmere and silk.
Since 2022, the third generation has joined the company. Thirty years of the house, three generations, one single address.
What sets Avant Toi apart from every other cashmere house is the way it treats colour. Mirko Ghignone brought techniques from painting into knitwear: garment dyeing, and above all the airbrush. Paint roller, brush, sprays of colour, drips, clay and plaster effects: the vocabulary is that of an artist's studio, not a textile factory.
He puts it plainly himself: "Painting cashmere. Flooding it with colour with the airbrush, the way I do with my own works." His sister completes the thought: "Every piece is like a painting. After thirty years, we are still following the same idea."
The consequence is simple, and it changes everything when you buy: because the colour is laid on by hand, piece by piece, no two are exactly alike. The house speaks of a character that is unique and cannot be reproduced. Two cardigans of the same style and the same shade will not have the same gradation.
Wearable art made in Genoa
Everything happens in one place: the Genoese headquarters, on the heights above the port, where design, production and management are brought together. Shima Seiki machines, acquired as early as 1993, for the knitting; then the hand, for all the rest. The house even claims the use of Genoa's own water for its treatments.
The resulting aesthetic is unmistakable: irregular surfaces, worn, almost corroded by time, a controlled imperfection. The house openly places the quality of the treatment above the perfection of the surface, linking "the classic concept of refinement with the charm of what is old and worn". Its men's and women's collections merge into a single dimension, defined by whoever wears the piece.
The Le Shop 17 selection
A range of dusty blues, cashmere, silk, micromodal. Pieces made to layer, and to age well.
Cashmere cardigan
Cashmere, dusty blue shade. The signature piece of the house.
820 €
Long silk skirt
Silk and elastane, dusty blue shade. The drape and the hand-painted colour.
790 €
V-neck kimono-sleeve top
Deep V-neck, kimono sleeves. A simple cut that lets the fabric speak.
650 €
Long micromodal skirt
Micromodal jersey in an extra-fine yarn. Light, fluid, to wear all summer.
390 €
Smoke-effect scarf
Extra-fine modal, sky blue smoked effect. The airbrush in its most legible form.
350 €
Boat-neck top
Micromodal, short sleeves, tie and dye treatment. The most accessible piece in the selection.
290 €
See the whole Avant Toi collection
Why you have to see it in person
Of everything in the Le Shop 17 selection, this is the house a photograph misleads you about most. An airbrushed gradation does not come across on a screen, and the hand of cashmere even less. You have to touch the fabric, and see how the colour shifts as the piece moves.
Come and discover it in Cannes
The Avant Toi selection is there to be seen and touched in store, at 15 rue Notre-Dame, 06400 Cannes, Monday to Saturday from 10am to 7pm. The Le Shop 17 team can be reached on +33 (0)4 93 39 46 46, by email at info@leshop17.com, or on WhatsApp. You can also follow the boutique's news on Instagram, @leshop17.
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