Recently I visited Mr Bugelli's shop in Florence. Here is a short report.
His shop is very, very (did I said very?) small. I wandered for a good twenty minutes on via Fra Bartolommeo in searching for his shop. Fortunately, Leonardo waited for me and opened his doors; I'm afraid that without this hint my chances of finding him were equal to 0.001%
He greeted me and we talked for a good two hours. What I can say? He is a very, very nice companion. He is honest in all that he do; he tried to do everything in his power to help me. For example, we meet at my last day in Florence; yet he managed to organize a first fitting for me -- at the same day! He told me that usually he provides three fittings for new clients, but for me this is, alas, was impossible, so we agreed to be satisfied with just one.
We discussed shirts, of course, but not only shirts! Tailoring, Uffitzi, current state of things in Moscow and Russia, even politics -- this is just a short sample of topics we touched. There was a very nice talk with his mother, who visited Russia in the 70s. She thinks that Moscow is a beautiful city (well, it is!) and strongly suggested to her son to visit Russia. Leonardo, listen to mom!
I also talked (by phone) with Mr Bonfanti, and (believe it or not) with our own Mr Bresch! Of course, the ring of Mr Bresch is just a pure coincidence, but still, David, it was very nice to talk with you!
All the work is done in this tiny workshop; Mr Bugelli cuts in the front room, and two laides sew in the backroom. There is no a separate fitting room; when there is a need for a fitting, front door and curtains are closed, and front room is transformed into the fitting room!
Unfortuantely, the only country that Leonardo regularly travels to is Japan. I believe that chances of regular visits to other parts of the world are slim. He is well known in Japan -- he showed me several Japanese magazines with articles about him. There are also some Italian ones; alas, no English (or Russian
) ones.He has a very good choice of MOP buttons; I choosed the thinniest ones, and even them are thickier than buttons on my ready-made shirts. Of course, he also has some REALLY THICK ones. For me, they are WAY too thick, but this is just me. Also, there are some oddly shaped buttons made just "for fun" -- for example, in the shape of a heart.
He is able to do hand-sewn buttonholes and hand-attached sleeves. But machine-made options are also available. For my shirts, I decided to do a "try" of both methods, and then choose depending on the intended use.
Fabric choice is very, very broad. Especially if you like stripes. But I noticed a relative lack of checks. For example, I didn't found tattersall checks and regular-sized gingham check in green colour. To his credit, Leonardo promised to seek for some tattersalls and send me them by post. He use only "top tier" of Italian and Swiss mills -- the likes of Bonfanti, Alumo, etc. I'm almost 100% sure that he doesn't use even Albini -- because it is not good enough by his standards.
But there lies a small problem -- by restricting himself with only few "top" vendors, he also restricts the choice available to his clients -- as I said, I didn't found some checks that are always available with any English shirtmaker -- even in ready-made form (for example, Harvie & Hudson has them all).Overall, my impressions are very-very good, and hopes are very-very high.
Without doublt, I recommend to anyone to pay a visit to Bugelli's shop -- my own visit is one of the most cherished memories of all my Italian trip.
Andrey