Growing cotton in Italy — regenerative or otherwise — seems rather counterintuitive, almost like cultivating lemon trees in the fjords of Norway. Yet it’s happening — at least on an experimental level.

In a country celebrated for its vineyards and olive groves, innovators are now turning their focus to cotton fields, determined to weave sustainability into one of the most water-intensive and resource-heavy crops on earth. It’s a bold undertaking, equal parts audacity and ingenuity, unfolding in Apulia, a region better known for its table grape cultivations, pristine beaches and picturesque villages that draw waves of summer tourists.

Realizing the pipe dream of Italian regenerative cotton takes serious collaboration: the initiative is backed by Armani, guided by King Charles III’s SMI Fashion Task Force and the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance, and coordinated by the European Forest Institute (EFI), in collaboration with Italy’s Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA) and Pretaterra, pioneers in regenerative agroforestry. Conceived as a “living laboratory”, the Apulia Regenerative Cotton Project aims to explore and refine best practices that may one day serve as scalable models for a more sustainable future in fashion and farming alike.

Launched in 2023, the project was spearheaded by Yoox founder Federico Marchetti, chair of the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) Task Force, who had been personally asked by the then-Prince of Wales in 2021 to devise a meaningful sustainable fashion initiative. “The first fashion player I called was Armani,” Marchetti recalls. It was a natural choice for Marchetti, who shared a personal friendship with the late Mr. Armani, as well as a longstanding business relationship with his brand, having servced on its board of directors since 2020. “I was basically the go-between for two kings — King Charles and King Giorgio,” he jokes.

The vision was clear: to root the project in Italy and explore how regenerative agriculture could breathe new life into the country’s long-dormant cotton fields, rethinking Armani’s most-used fiber in the process. Apulia, with its gentle climate and rich agricultural tradition, was chosen as the ideal testing ground. The researchers at CREA, which operates 12 research centers across Italy dedicated to sustainable agricultural and forestry ecosystems, offered one of their five Apulian farms for the experiment. On five hectares of land, Italian cotton primed for its comeback.

Reviving an ancient practice
Cotton cultivation in Italy has ancient roots, tracing back to the exchanges between the Arab world and the medieval Mediterranean. Introduced by the Arabs between the 9th and 10th centuries, it first took hold in Sicily, where the Saracens turned the island’s fertile eastern lands into thriving cotton fields. From there, the crop spread gradually across the peninsula, though it remained modest for centuries. Its true renaissance came in the 19th century, when cotton became a key crop of the south and Sicily proudly earned the title “Mother of Cotton in Italy”. But the boom was short-lived. By the 1950s, competition and labor shortages sent production into decline, and Italy’s once vibrant cotton fields faded into memory, their legacy surviving only in a few determined revival projects in the south.

The Apulia Regenerative Cotton Project began in 2023, with a single hectare of cotton sown among neat rows of peach trees. The following year, the agroforestry practice grew bolder, welcoming poplar and pomegranate trees into the mix and stretching across three hectares — agroforestry counting for 0.6 hectares, classic monoculture for 2.4 hectares. By the third year, the fields had become a sort of Mediterranean garden, with cotton now sharing space with carob, fig and mulberry trees over 5.2 hectares, increasing agroforestry to 3.6 hectares and reducing monoculture to 1.6 hectares. The project surpassed its five-year expansion goal well ahead of schedule, and the harvests came in kind: 2,400 kilograms of regenerative cotton in the first year, and 3,000 kilograms the next.

The projection is to harvest 5,000 kilograms of cotton by 2025. While the initial phase was focused on researching the impact of regenerative agriculture and demonstrating its feasibility in Italy, Armani says scalability is becoming increasingly important, in light of the positive results.

On the scientific front, the initiative has already borne intellectual fruit, with four peer-reviewed studies published in international journals such as Agroforestry Systems, the Journal of Environmental Management, and Plants. The research delves into how cotton can thrive sustainably; how trees through agroforestry practices can help sequester carbon in the soil, limiting emissions; and how water consumption can be remarkably reduced, leading to better soil moisture and better soil health generally, using artificial intelligence to make irrigation smarter and more efficient, with crops sipping rather than gulping their water.

From pilot to product
On the fashion front, the crowning achievement to date is the creation of Armani’s first garment made entirely from regenerative cotton. From the inaugural harvest, around one thousand T-shirts were crafted from the Regenagri-certified cotton, each equipped with a QR code and a digital product passport (DPP) to promote traceability. Available in crisp white or deep blue, each T-shirt bears the designer’s embroidered signature in matching thread. Retailing at €350, the garments debuted in select Giorgio Armani boutiques across Europe (excluding the UK and Switzerland) and online from July.

At the two-year check-in in Apulia last week, Armani’s newly appointed CEO Giuseppe Marsocci highlighted the project’s success, noting that in-store sales had surpassed expectations. Marchetti offers a broader reflection: “This is a long-term project with a bold innovative spirit, a reminder that Made in Italy should stand not only for tradition, but also for progress. This initiative serves as a blueprint, a model that could inspire other fashion houses to rethink how beauty and responsibility can coexist.”

In order to scale, the project would need to reckon with thorny questions about certification. While there is currently no standardized methodology for measuring the impact of regenerative agriculture, there are voluntary standards hoping to lead the way, including Regenagri and the European Union, the latter of which is said to be working on a broader regulatory framework. In the meantime, Armani says it is regularly measuring multiple soil metrics, including organic matter, respiration, microbial biodiversity and the capacity to hold water. “Preliminary results show positive effects on soil carbon from leguminous cover crops — especially with minimal or no tillage — and increased biodiversity in agroforestry systems,” the company notes. “The full impact will be assessed after three to five years.”

While netizens remain cautious about the promise of locally grown materials and their potential to scale, Marchetti envisions a ripple effect across the Made in Italy landscape, “where sustainability becomes as integral to our identity as craftsmanship itself. Soil health, after all, is a vital asset — the foundation upon which everything grows,” he says. “When the soil is depleted, the cycle of life falters; protecting it is not a choice, but an imperative. Investing in its regeneration means investing in the very future of our industries, our environment and our Made in Italy heritage. This project proves that renewal powered by innovation is possible, and I hope it becomes an example many others will follow.”