The London Lounge

Place your admissions to the guide of Italian tailors here. ( Note: As with the other A-Z threads, please keep your comments to personal experience. Links to infomercials and advertisements on other sites will be erased as will be anything that hints of an advert: travel schedules etc.)

Cheers

Michael Alden

Solito (Napoli)

Luigi Solito travels (very infrequently) to the U.S. The default cut offered is very lean n' mean Neapolitan - light, but cut very close to the body (including the sleeves), and high everything (gorge, button placement etc.). Luigi appears to be talented, but several fittings are necessary to adapt his preferred cut to the needs of American clients.

I cannot recommend him given his unwillingness to travel with any regularity, or even reply to simple telephone calls or emails. He doesn't appear to care much for his American customers, and treats them with more than a bit of disdain.

Note that a more draped, looser fitting cut does seem to be available. Members have had much greater success by traveling to Naples directly.

Prices (in 2011) start from ~1,800 euros for a two-piece suit.


Badden

I have used Luigi Solito (traveling to US) and Caraceni, in Rome, with good results.

Napoli Su Misura / Mina Adamo (Napoli)

This traveling tailoring service offering authentic Neapolitan clothing is run by Mina Adamo and her partner Dino. Apart from frequent trips to the United States, they also travel to London and Stockholm (I'll limit my observations to their U.S. visits).

NSM travels monthly to the United States, alternating between NY / Boston and San Francisco. The style offered is very Neapolitan - a short jacket, high gorge / lapels, slim sleeves, tighter / shorter trousers etc. However, Mina is well aware of the more mainstream needs of her American clients, and, upon request, will adapt her style.

The service offered is excellent - unlike many other Southern Italian tailors, she delivers on time, is very prompt in replying to emails, and takes pains to ensure the customer leaves satisfied with the end product. Changes / alterations, well after the garment has been delivered, are made readily and without argument.

Her cloth selection is somewhat limited, but she is expanding her offerings (Harrisons, for example, is now on offer). She does have some great Loro Piana sportcoatings not seen in the U.S. or London.

CMT prices are 1,200 euros for a sportcoat and 1,500 euros for a suit.

Gianni Volpe - Naples

Bio: (Quote) ..Born in Naples in 1953, Gianni Volpe’s formative tailoring years were spent under the direction of Antonio Schiraldi. Here learned the fundamental notions of building a “sartorial” bespoke suit.

At just 27 he went on to form part of the tailoring team of Blasi, in the Vomero area -a place renown for both Made to Measure and Bespoke suits. This experience lasted a good 10 years, and through it, apparently, Volpe developed the capacity for identifying, at first sight, the smallest imperfection in a suit. In 1991 he spent a year working at the established “sartoria” Rubinacci in the heart of the city -this will be a name familiar to most people I imagine.

Then in 1993, after leavening the renown “sartoria” Isaia, Gianni Volpe set up on his own and commenced with dressing the Neapolitan elite with his own creations. ..

Maestro Luigi Gallo. Via Flavia in Rome. He is famous in Italy and trained under Maestro
Litrico. He is also the president of the European Chamber of High Tailoring.