Many years ago across the street from the famous Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires there was a small tailor’s shop where a young man born of a Sicilian immigrant family hand made bespoke suits. He had learned his craft from older Sicilian and Neapolitan tailors from his community. “Those old tailors taught me so many things, the little things that make all the difference. One day, I decided to use these skills in my own shop. And that is how I started.”
The Sicilian clan in Buenos Aires originated in a town called Leonforte on the South flank of Etna in the province of Catania. It is a town famous for its late harvest peaches heralded by Slow Food in their registry of the most notable Italian food products. I was there last year buying peach trees for my garden. Little did I know that the family of one of the last great New York tailors and London Lounge certified artisan, Raphael Raffaelli, originated in that lovely medieval town.
As fate would have it, in the 1960s Raffaelli made a move that Manhatten based dandies are grateful for when he left Argentina for New York, thanks to the persuasions of a young lady. Fifty years later he is still at his bench crafting handmade suits the way the old tailors had taught him with Rhoda rooting him on. “It’s pretty simple. I just make one request, ‘let me make you a suit’, and after that if I have made that suit the way I know it should be made, you, the customer will come back. You can tell a good craftsman by the behavior of his clients, if they keep coming back for more!”
They probably keep coming back for more because of the comfort Rafaelli sews painstakingly into his suits. “I don’t use heavy horsehair structure and hardy anything at all in the chest. A man’s suit should feel good to wear. But it takes so much time, if you do things the right way, to create that irresistible comfort.” When his clients bring in clothes made by prestigious foreign tailors he is sometimes surprised. “I had this fellow bring in an English suit from a great name. The lapels were not the same size. The buttonholes were stitched crooked. And the fitter had neglected a few inches of drop in a shoulder. I could never let a customer take a suit like that out of my shop. There is just something inside me that leads me to always do my best for my clients. And “yes” I do it so the client will be happy, but I have to be happy too.”
Like most of the great tailors, Raffaelli is keen on the quality of the cloth he uses. “I used to have a friend in New York, he was from Buenos Aires too. He had the eye for great cloth, he had stacks of it, but that kind of cloth is a thing of the past.” But a lovely suit length of blue flannel with a soft gray windowpane had made its way into his hands. “I liked it so much when I made it for a client. And he brought me some for myself. But it is almost Spring now, and it is heavy cloth, so I will wait to make my suit from it.” This simple reflection reminded me so much of my own Sicilian tailors, I had to smile, the seasons pass and those suits “I want to make for myself” never seem to get made.
Maybe if Raph was a few years younger, he would make that suit up for himself more quickly because the effect of his tailoring and good LL cloth can be quite remarkable.
Well a great sense of humor and steadfast values to an ancient trade have served Raffaelli well over the years. Ranked by “Town & Country” magazine as one of the best tailors in the country, he is actually a member of an even more elite group who are rightfully considered the best in the world by tailoring aficionados. “I just like men who are straight shooters, and who want to look great. They just have to want it enough to be patient and do the fittings. Men are in too much of a hurry these days. They need to slow down and let a craftsman do what needs to be done. That is the way the old school client, who respected the craft as much as we tailors did, used to be.”
The old school kind of customer may be coming back as young men decide they want to look their best. And there is a passing of the baton of sorts in another sense as the things a young Raffaelli learned from the Sicilian masters, he is passing on to others and most notably to the owner of Mimmo’s goat named "Annabelle", Frank Shattuck. Don’t ask.
A great thanks to Raphael Raffaelli for a wonderful talk and a wonderful career.
Cheers
