Poole or Kilgour bespoke thoughts/advice-US tour

[mafoofan]

Michael, your experience dwarfs mine (an understatement), so I feel compelled to concede. However, don't you think that very skilled tailors in any tradition ought to be able to adapt, moderate and scale features for a client's body? My point is not so much that the archetypical "Neapolitan" suit looks as good as the archetypical "Anglo-American" suit on a large frame, but that the ability and talent of the individual tailor outweighs any such conceptual deficit.

In other words, if you love the style and romance of, say, the Southern Italian tailoring tradition, can't you expect to have it done well if you get the right tailor, regardless of one's physique, as you have? Moreover, even if it can be agreed that a military-style Savile Row suit looks better on larger frames, I have to imagine that a less competent tailor of that tradition is a worse choice than the best of the Italians. When we're talking about tailor shops like Poole or Kilgour, I assume that the would-be client is not constrained by budget and can pick the best of any regional tradition.

Of course, it's been argued by many that my own tailoring choices are evidence of the strongest order that I don't know what I'm doing, so I guess I should shut up.

[alden]

Matt,

As far as Italy is concerned there are two issues: one is cultural and the other is sartorial.

There is a very strong local imprint and identity in Italian towns, cities and regions. A brief study of the countries history will reveal the roots of this phenomenon. The local tradition or imprint affects all aspects of life including dress.

Italians tend to be tribal, divided into clans that resemble on another. There is safety in numbers. Individuals, black sheep, “flyers” get ground up in the machine and served over pasta. It is not a good idea to stand out, so dress like the others and remain indistinguishable from your peers. In this environment, our friends the tailors have spent generations dressing people in their local “uniform.” So we see Neapolitan dress quite different from Milanese that is different from Florentine or Romans all of whom are a bit different from Sicilians etc.

In other words, if you love the style and romance of, say, the Southern Italian tailoring tradition, can't you expect to have it done well if you get the right tailor, regardless of one's physique, as you have?

The minuscule and nominally irrelevant numbers of foreign clients of Italian tailors are not about to change the standards, aesthetics and tastes of local citizens or their craftsmen. An example, after working with great persistence with a Sicilian tailor to get the more draped coat I wanted (the one you can see in the Ambrosi video on DWS), I was wearing and admiring his work one day when a gaggle of his local customers walked into the shop. They looked most strangely at me, quizzically. "Oh, that coat is not really representative of my work!", the tailor suddenly blurted out,"the client wanted the jacket to look like that, so I made it that way especially for him." The tailor was embarrassed and frightened at the same time. So, yes, I was able to coax a tailor out of his comfort zone, but not publicly.

This gregarious impulse and pressure to conform creates little pressure on local Italian tailors to change their methods or try new things. In the essay “Our Good Tailor”, I wrote about tailors needing the will, the motivation, the drive to do something that has little economic interest for them. And it is not an uniquely Italian phenomenon. Tailors the world over tend to be pretty level headed people who out of need err towards being practical. Maybe a new generation of tailors who understand the importance of "export" market for their services will be more adept at change and innovation. Maybe the traveling tailors will feel the need to be more open minded and let their true talents, if talents there are, come to the fore.

In this regards, I think that some of the best Italian or English tailors in the world are those who migrated into environments where they were really challenged and forced to be more enterprising and creative. In New York you must know some of the great immigrant talent that is starting sadly to fade away.

From a sartorial and technical point of view, most tailors could make any kind of clothes imaginable….if they wanted to or if they were motivated to do so.

Cheers

[Yale Cameron]

I spoke with Simon Cundey yesterday on the phone. He is a very amiable guy. they bring quite a bit of fabric with them. Interesitngly, he was not shy about saying they prefer the fabric of certain merchants over some others and was happy that I have used Lesser and Smith to my satisfaction in the past. He has Alex Cooke, a senior cutter at Poole, acompany him on every U.S. trip to do the measurements fitting etc. So, I felt pretty good after talking with him and decided I will give Poole a shot. I am also going to Leonard this fall to have him make me up a couple suits and a Tux (alden that buggy lining looks very interesitng, I may ask leonard about it). I know that the moderate english style really works well on me and makes for durable, good basic business workhorse suits (which is what I need at the moment). Once i have the comparison of Poole and Logsdail I think that will give me a very good idea of things moving forward. I must say, Leonard makes a very long coat for me (Leonard is a strong believer that bigger/taller guys look better with longish coats), others (WW chan for one) claim its too long, yet when on me I think it it looks great and the length of the coat is very much in balance with my frame IMO, even though it seems "too long" to others based on measurement or opinion.

Perhaps in the future I will be able to get to Italy for a substantial length of time and get something made to decide how I like it on me. Mafoo, have you been happy with your neapolitan commisions? I thought that Matuozzo shirt looked great in the pictures. I must say I much prefer Italian shirts to English. I will probbaly get to Naples sometime in the next couple of years for a short vacation. Probably won't be enough time to have a suit made, but certianly some ties from marinella and some shirts. My friend had shirts made at merolla e de l'ero (marinella told him to go there to have shirts made) and they really are superb.

[alden]

I must say, Leonard makes a very long coat for me (Leonard is a strong believer that bigger/taller guys look better with longish coats), others (WW chan for one) claim its too long, yet when on me I think it it looks great and the length of the coat is very much in balance with my frame IMO, even though it seems "too long" to others based on measurement or opinion.

Yale,

Coat length can also be a function of the length of your torso as compared to your legs. A man with long legs and a short torso, can wear a long coat well. But a man with a long torso and short legs will look the devil in a long coat. Very few men are actually perfectly balanced between torso and leg length...if you are one of them, wear what pleases YOU!

Come to Sicily when you do make it over. The food is better, the sea is lovely and my tailors can get work done in a week's time.

Cheers

[mafoofan]

That's some fascinating stuff, Michael--thanks for taking the time to explain it to me. I suppose my own experience is deeply colored by having worked with a Neapolitan tailor that regularly services international clients. Yet, even in that light, I have witnessed glimmers of the regionalism you describe. My jackets were initially made without full front darts. When I asked if the full darts could be added, Mariano explained that they didn't do them for me initially because they only do them for Neapolitan clients by default. Of course, I wound up getting my full-length darts, but the experience made it clear to me that Rubinacci attempts to intuit the preferences of clients outside its historic locale.

Anyway, I wasn't suggesting that Y.C. try a regional tailor of little international exposure. Amongst the Italians, I was thinking more of a place like Rubinacci or Caraceni, maybe Liverano. Do you think shops like those might be better at overcoming regional tunnel vision?

Yale, I really love my clothes from Naples. But like I pointed out above, I got my suits from a source that is much more internationally inclined than most other Neapolitan tailors. That may have made a huge difference. Matuozzo is easy to work with: very organized, efficient and transparent, which are all helpful for us foreigners.

[alden]

Amongst the Italians, I was thinking more of a place like Rubinacci or Caraceni, maybe Liverano. Do you think shops like those might be better at overcoming regional tunnel vision?

Its a mixed bag. I have seen some N. Europeans, Americans and Japanese men who look great in the clothes of these more international Italian tailoring houses. And I have seen men who look silly in very regionally inspired clothing that conflicts not only with their stature but with their personalities and style. A man six foot six would suffer in their hands.

I think the SR tailoring houses 1) Have a style that is more suitable for a wider range of shapes, sizes and personalities; and 2) A vast experience serving men from all over the world on the Row and a centuries worth via traveling tailor programs. I don't think its a question of styling or tailoring as much as this experience with a wide variety of customers that makes the difference in favor of British tailoring.

Cheers

Michael

[angelo]

Alden wrote
There is a very strong local imprint and identity in Italian towns, cities and regions. A brief study of the countries history will reveal the roots of this phenomenon. The local tradition or imprint affects all aspects of life including dress.
Italians tend to be tribal, divided into clans that resemble on another. There is safety in numbers. Individuals, black sheep, “flyers” get ground up in the machine and served over pasta. It is not a good idea to stand out, so dress like the others and remain indistinguishable from your peers. In this environment, our friends the tailors have spent generations dressing people in their local “uniform.” So we see Neapolitan dress quite different from Milanese that is different from Florentine or Romans all of whom are a bit different from Sicilians etc

Michael, in my opinion this italian peculiarity of different ways of interpreting and living all the aspects of life represents a richness rather than a limit when dressing is concerned. The latter an human discipline that does not need ,at variance with others such as home economics ,welfare and health administration etc., to be uniform or organized on a nation or world wide basis, is strongly supported by the above regional variability that constitutes its main source of creativity.

Alden wrote:
think the SR tailoring houses 1) Have a style that is more suitable for a wider range of shapes, sizes and personalities; and 2) A vast experience serving men from all over the world on the Row and a centuries worth via traveling tailor programs. I don't think its a question of styling or tailoring as much as this experience with a wide variety of customers that makes the difference in favor of British tailoring.

This can also be true ,but the results are sometimes poor as compared to those of many italian tailors even if:a) their workshops are located in small villages (as You have clearly demonstrated with Your sicilian tailors ); b)they do not travel abroad; c)do not have an international pool of customers.

Mafoofan wrote:
Yale, I really love my clothes from Naples. But like I pointed out above, I got my suits from a source that is much more internationally inclined than most other Neapolitan tailors. That may have made a huge difference

Matt, you have got Your suits from Mariano Rubinacci ,a source that has storically made a revolution in neapolitan tailoring . Indeed the "London House " Premise in Neaples created by his father Gennaro, through the technical skill and the fantasy of the great tailor Vincenzo Attolini , has represented the origin of all the actual main features of neapolitan style and technical tailoring. In addition if I am rigth Your suits were principally ,if not all, made at London House in Naples , the Premise that still keeps unchanged the local traditional style without diluting it in international waters, and indeed Your suits look very neapolitan .If You love them ,this demonstrates that traditional neapolitan tailoring at its best can reach some vertices that can fascinate also persons that have different education and feelings and do not belong to the local tribe .

[Merc]

I

Come to Sicily when you do make it over. The food is better, the sea is lovely and my tailors can get work done in a week's time.

Cheers

what 'provincia' of sicily are you in?
i dont get there often enough but do go from time to time and am curious?

[Yale Cameron]

Angelo,

I don't want to speak for Alden, but I interpreted his comments not as saying that the tribalism is bad in any way, just that the resulting local look (in this case neapolitan) will not translate well onto someone of my size. Further, the tribalism and local adherence to "uniform" makes the tailors philosophically unable to alter the product well for certain body types. this is not necessarily bad either, it results in the great, unique looks of the regions of italy. Its similar to Italian food I think, which is so much more regional than Anglo-Americans realize. I want bolognese in bolonga, bistecca fiorentina in florence, tripe/Saltimbocca. bucatini amatriciana in rome, pizza in naples etc. etc. Yet, I bet I can make a better cheeseburger than a huge majority of the people in Naples. I think this was Alden's basic point, that the regionalism yields beauty and perfection in one style in one place, but that they are unable to necessarily transport the technical brilliance of that style into another medium (or silhouette/body type). Anyway, that is how I took everything. So, I don't view yours and alden's posts as mutually exclusive, rather they are two sides of one coin. that is the great thing about Italian regionalism. that is is so specific that it can be both fantastic for some and a poor choice for others. I certianly think the neapolitan style can fascinate people of other education and feelings but I, like Alden, have concern about how it translates onto certain body types. And his point about savile row is true, they have been dressing Americans and all nationalities for years and years. Americans have only recently began going to actual tailors in Naples for suits. Perhaps 20 years from now, the neapolitans will have discovered ways to make some alterations in the look to better fit other more extreme body types.

Alden, I would love to visit Sicily along with every part of italy, perhaps I will take you up on that. I will have to take a look at some of the information on the site about what you are oferring over there.

[alden]

Michael, in my opinion this italian peculiarity of different ways of interpreting and living all the aspects of life represents a richness rather than a limit when dressing is concerned.

Angelo, I agree, its a "richness" in nearly every way. One of the things visitors love about Italy is the amazing diversity and character. You travel down the road fifty kilometers and there is a new reality, language, culture, food, products. Its probably the most attractive feature of Italy as well.

This can also be true ,but the results are sometimes poor as compared to those of many italian tailors even if:a) their workshops are located in small villages (as You have clearly demonstrated with Your sicilian tailors ); b)they do not travel abroad; c)do not have an international pool of customers.

Yes, but in this regard I was focusing only on the ability of a group of tailors to fit and style clothes for very tall men or extremes of size. I think the British and US tailors have more experience on a day to day basis because their local clients often are very tall or large; and they have experience historically from the men who have come from all over the world to have their clothes made in London, and from many decades experience with the traveling tailor format.

I would add that one of the largest subsets of foreign Savile Row customers, after the Americans, are Italians. Maybe they are tall Italians?

Cheers

Michael

[angelo]

Alden wrote:
Yes, but in this regard I was focusing only on the ability of a group of tailors to fit and style clothes for very tall men or extremes of size. I think the British and US tailors have more experience on a day to day basis because their local clients often are very tall or large; and they have experience historically from the men who have come from all over the world to have their clothes made in London, and from many decades experience with the traveling tailor format.

Michael , generally speaking this is true but it does not necessary imply that italian tailors are not able to make suits for large and tall customers. Indeeed, as far as some italian tailors are concerned, the results are superb and can be considered better of those obtained on average from many Savile Row Premises. In support of this assertion I am enclosing the picture below showing on the left a double breasted jacket ,part of a chalk striped grey flannel suit, made by the neapolitan tailor Gennaro Solito (the man on the right with a blue blazer) for a foreign customer about 2 meters tall. One can realize that ,even when made for a tall and large person, the jacket silhouette results very elegant with a well balanced waistline and that the coat can still keep unchanged all the typical features of neapolitan tailoring. As further support of this I can also bring the personal memory of an uncle of mine , also about 2 meters tall and weighting more than 100 kg, whose suits were all made (many years ago ) by another great neapolitan tailor Angelo Blasi (altough his style was considered more international and the least neapolitan among neapolitans). Indeed Blasi's suits could be considered unique masterpieces as they made my uncle appear with a superb silhouette.

Alden wrote
I would add that one of the largest subsets of foreign Savile Row customers, after the Americans, are Italians. Maybe they are tall Italians?

In this regard I have to say that a large part of well educated and wealthy people of my generation (I am sixty now) has been grown with the myth of English elegance and Savile Row tailoring and has desidered to have, at least once in the life,a suit made by one of the famous Savile Row Premises. Depending on the actual crisis of Savile Row that has no more or very few skilled artisans left that can go on keeping its superb tailoring tradition , this is no more true with the exception of very formal suits such as morning and evening tail coats for which Savile Row still mantains, in my opinion, an unsurpassed supremacy. Actually it is just for this kinds of suits that many italians still go to Savile Row.

Best regards,
Angelo

[manton]

I now have two Neapolitan suits made for me (by Solito). 6'4", 170 lbs.

I like the SB a lot. I think it looks good and harmonious. I am less happy with the DB. I think it is too long and the button stance a bit too "high and tight." When he comes back (assuming he does come back), I will give him back the DB and ask for it to be shortened by a cm or 2. Nothing can be done about the button stance. I think once the coat is shorter it should be OK, though.

[alden]

Michael , generally speaking this is true but it does not necessary imply that italian tailors are not able to make suits for large and tall customers. Indeed, as far as some italian tailors are concerned, the results are superb

I didn't begin to imply that it was mathematically impossible for an Italian tailor to dress a man of extreme stature or size. But if I was to offer some brotherly advice to a 6'6" American who is making his first steps in the bespoke world, I would send him to a tailor who has a lot of day to day experience working with big men. And I would surely send him to a UK or American tailor or an Italian tailor in the US (for example) rather than put him on a plane for a country where he does not speak the language and has no resources for objective guidance in the matter. I think that is good, practical advice and it is not a reflection on the state of Italian tailoring.

Actually it is just for this kinds of suits that many italians still go to Savile Row.

You could be right but I remember sitting for a few hours with Brian Russell as he was making a few seersucker suits for an Italian client. He told me he had a large Italian client list and so did his former employer, Anderson & Sheppard. I was as surprised as you are.

Cheers

Michael

[alden]

I am less happy with the DB. I think it is too long and the button stance a bit too "high and tight." When he comes back (assuming he does come back), I will give him back the DB and ask for it to be shortened by a cm or 2. Nothing can be done about the button stance. I think once the coat is shorter it should be OK, though.

Cheers Manton,

That is the kind of problem I had as well. Italians cut a high button point because it lengthens the line, slims the line of their short and mid sized clients. But the same button point on a tall man doesn't work nearly as well, as the tall man does not need his line lengthened. And the vast empty space below the final row of buttons starts to look like West Texas.

Solito has a reputation in Naples for making long coats. I have seen a few made for his clients and they are really quite long. It is his style and some of his clients must like it very much. The funny thing is that most of the other Neapolitan tailors there tend to make short coats.

I hope he can get things sorted for you as he is very talented, and once he dials you in, things should be fine.

Michael Alden

[Yale Cameron]

The Solito jackets look great ot my eye. He looks great in his coat and the fabric on that grey chalk stripe DB is absolutely superb. Prhaps if I ever get to Naples, he may be a good choice for me based on his penchant for making a longer coat. His coat looks to have a lot of drape in the chest yet it remains very trim and clean looking. His lapels are super wide. WHy is it that Italians/neapolitans rarely seem to have flap pockets?