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Fiori proffers a pair of bound swatches as examples—an aquamarine square of silk with "the Chinese finish"—stiff and a little bit shiny—then the same fabric with "the Italian finish." The second square is the exact same color and weight, but it's somehow mellower, with a faint sheen and an almost buttery texture. The difference is unmistakable.

Unlike Fei, or indeed many of their own countrymen whose family textile businesses are shuttering under pressure from Chinese prices, Fiori and Ziggiotti aren't inclined to nationalism. Even as they acknowledge how quickly their Chinese colleagues learn new techniques, they don't worry about Chinese competition in taste and style. Asked if he's concerned that China may someday surpass Italy in innovation, Ziggiotti, 37, leans back and smiles. "The Italian creative is," he pauses and gestures lavishly, "the Italian creative. You don't teach the creative. It's a feeling. You have it, or you have it not."

For Fiori, 34, working in Hangzhou is exciting precisely because of the ambition of people like Fei to be the best in the world. The High Fashion China Company already sells a small number of its fabrics to leading designer brands, including Armani, Chloé and Valentino, and Fiori hopes that side of the business will grow. "Here everything is new. The Chinese have ... a deep culture for making the job good. What's important in textiles is to be part of a project with passion. It's not important if it's in China or India or Italy. We can mix our cultures together. It's not a war."

Indeed, Fei has more in common with Italy's small family businesses than meets the eye. Had he lived at an earlier time, it would have been a foregone conclusion he would make silk for a living. His great-grandfather Fei Xizhai raised silkworms and mulberry trees on a farm in Huzhou. His grandfather Fei Qisheng was a textile merchant and moved the family to Hangzhou at the turn of the 20th century, where he built his own small brocade mill next to the family home. Fei's father worked for the family business, which had stores around the country, including one in Beijing. When Fei was a boy of four, all of this ended. The revolution forced the family out of business in 1955. Fei has no memories of the silk of those days, but he spent his boyhood playing in the empty building that once housed his grandfather's looms.

Despite his lineage, his more than two decades at the helm, Fei worries more about China's resurgence than regaining what his family lost. As an individual he's content to let the past stay in the past. But when it comes to Hangzhou and to China, he won't be satisfied until they reoccupy what he believes is their rightful place in the world. He's working to help start up silk farms in impoverished areas of western China. He serves on councils in Hangzhou devoted to enhancing the city's expertise in fashion. He travels to Italy to see how his rivals do their job. He printed a piece of silk with a map of China on it and sent it into space with China's first astronaut.

It wasn't until recently that Fei learned his older sister still keeps a piece of their grandfather's silk. She never thought of it as an heirloom and only saved it because it was useful for wrapping the bamboo mats her family sleeps on in the summer. Fei's 25-year-old son now works for the company too, the fifth generation of Feis in the business. Perhaps one day he'll use the silk the same way too, or perhaps he'll hang it on the wall in his father's factory—when Napoleon Bonaparte is no longer needed.