Post by Ace on Sept 30, 2003 0:02:05 GMT -5
Financial Times: Arts & Weekend
Sharpening the suit
By Peter Howarth
Published: September 26 2003
There is a book entitled Single Malt Whisky: An Italian Passion whose cover features a party scene from Fellini's study of Roman decadence La Dolce Vita. Inside, it declares it is the first in a series on "The Art of Living Well".
"The art of living well is the Italian way," explains the author, Umberto Angeloni, an urbane 50-year-old, with longish, swept-back greying hair and an impeccably tailored ivory suit - made, one assumes, in the Italian way. For Angeloni is not only an author of somewhat arcane lifestyle publications (check out his The Boutonniere: Style in One's Lapel, a history of buttonhole decoration) but also chief executive of Brioni, the Italian group that effectively invented the suit-as-fashion-item. For those of us who want to know why we dress like we do, Angeloni may well provide the answers.
The answers begin behind an unmarked door in a courtyard next to the Four Seasons Hotel in Milan.
A strip light hangs above a tailor's waist-high table, while old sewing machines stand ready to the side. This is the cutting room for the Brioni men's and women's stores, as well as a new Brioni suite opening in the Four Seasons this month, designed by Brioni architects and offering special dry-cleaning and room service (including southern Italian dishes not available to other guests). There is a row of brown card patterns hanging on a rail; hand-written on one is "Pierce Brosnan. Bond".
"Ah yes, James Bond," says Angeloni, and smiles. "It's a great collaboration, and not as expensive for us as you might imagine. The truth is the Broccoli family are friends, and asked us to make the clothing for Pierce for the films."
Behind another unmarked door - anonymity is a rare commodity in this city of labels - is a salon with armchairs, a sofa and oil paintings. On the wall hang photos of stars being fitted, their tailors deftly working at their sides. Angeloni pours Scotch (of course) and explains that this is the "atelier" or consultation room, where clients are measured for a bespoke suit.
He is at pains to point out the difference between bespoke and made-to-measure. "Bespoke is where the suit is made from your measurements exclusively, from scratch," he says. "This is something we still do, only here in Milan and in Rome. Everyone now says they do bespoke, but what they mean is made-to-measure. That is where an existing suit design is adapted to your shape."
Founded in 1945 in Rome by Nazareno Fonticoli, a swashbuckling tailor, and his charismatic salesman business partner, Gaetano Savini, Brioni took its name from an island in the Adriatic, once a favoured haunt of Italian and other European high society before the second world war. After Rome was liberated, it proved the perfect place to fan the flames of an Italian sartorial renaissance. It had the climate of the south, which encouraged outdoor living, and the ritual passegiata, or evening promenade, which required finery from both sexes. It also had a male population desperate to gloss over the privation of post-war life.
As photographer William Klein remarked in 1959: "The purchase of fabric is certainly very important to the Roman man. So is presenting the bella figura. For him, clothing comes before food."
Fonticoli and Savini recognised this truth for what it was, and business thrived. They rode the Italian economic miracle, which saw the rise of cars by Fiat and scooters by Vespa. The nearby film studios at Cinecittà brought the American stars to Rome and many stopped by at Brioni - Henry Fonda, Clark Gable, John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Kirk Douglas, Gary Cooper. Indeed it was the Americans who really took to the firm, recognising its innovative styling as something fresher than the British-inspired fare they were still being offered at home. In 1959, Gentleman's Quarterly called Brioni "the American's tailor".
As modern-day fan (and American) writer Jay McInerney says: "The concept of 'men's fashion' was practically invented in a small shop on Rome's Via Barberini. At the same time Dior was creating the 'New Look' for women in post-war Paris, the new Roman firm of Brioni began to challenge the hegemony of English menswear with a brighter palette, lighter fabrics, and less restrictive clothing."
No one had seen anything like this before: a bright red tuxedo jacket, a pearl-coloured dinner jacket over a double-breasted pink waistcoat and cobalt blue trousers, a cocktail suit in gold silk. In 1952 Brioni held the first-ever fashion show in the history of menswear in the Pitti Palace in Florence, and 1954 it repeated the feat in New York. At a time when male models didn't really exist, Brioni's boys became catwalk regulars, as the firm staged almost a show a month for the next 25 years.
Pre-1960, all Brioni's output was bespoke - handmade in its entirety. But as demand outstripped its capacity, the founders set up a factory in Penne, Fonticoli's home town, to semi-automate the production process. This was another first. The factory is still there, taking the measurements provided by tailors at retail and converting them into the finished garment on a production line - albeit one that requires 150 steps and up to 30 hours' work on one suit. To ensure the craft didn't die out, Brioni even created a school at Penne to train 20 tailors a year.
Now, under Angeloni, Brioni is on a roll again. "The problem with tailoring today is that it is considered conservative," says Angeloni. "It was not always the case, especially with bespoke, which used to be the most avant-garde option. You could have what you wanted." He points to a photo on the wall of Peter Sellers in a Brioni coat in swirly astrakhan. Austin Powers, eat your heart out.
www.brioni.com
Peter Howarth is the consultant creative director of Esquire
Sharpening the suit
By Peter Howarth
Published: September 26 2003
There is a book entitled Single Malt Whisky: An Italian Passion whose cover features a party scene from Fellini's study of Roman decadence La Dolce Vita. Inside, it declares it is the first in a series on "The Art of Living Well".
"The art of living well is the Italian way," explains the author, Umberto Angeloni, an urbane 50-year-old, with longish, swept-back greying hair and an impeccably tailored ivory suit - made, one assumes, in the Italian way. For Angeloni is not only an author of somewhat arcane lifestyle publications (check out his The Boutonniere: Style in One's Lapel, a history of buttonhole decoration) but also chief executive of Brioni, the Italian group that effectively invented the suit-as-fashion-item. For those of us who want to know why we dress like we do, Angeloni may well provide the answers.
The answers begin behind an unmarked door in a courtyard next to the Four Seasons Hotel in Milan.
A strip light hangs above a tailor's waist-high table, while old sewing machines stand ready to the side. This is the cutting room for the Brioni men's and women's stores, as well as a new Brioni suite opening in the Four Seasons this month, designed by Brioni architects and offering special dry-cleaning and room service (including southern Italian dishes not available to other guests). There is a row of brown card patterns hanging on a rail; hand-written on one is "Pierce Brosnan. Bond".
"Ah yes, James Bond," says Angeloni, and smiles. "It's a great collaboration, and not as expensive for us as you might imagine. The truth is the Broccoli family are friends, and asked us to make the clothing for Pierce for the films."
Behind another unmarked door - anonymity is a rare commodity in this city of labels - is a salon with armchairs, a sofa and oil paintings. On the wall hang photos of stars being fitted, their tailors deftly working at their sides. Angeloni pours Scotch (of course) and explains that this is the "atelier" or consultation room, where clients are measured for a bespoke suit.
He is at pains to point out the difference between bespoke and made-to-measure. "Bespoke is where the suit is made from your measurements exclusively, from scratch," he says. "This is something we still do, only here in Milan and in Rome. Everyone now says they do bespoke, but what they mean is made-to-measure. That is where an existing suit design is adapted to your shape."
Founded in 1945 in Rome by Nazareno Fonticoli, a swashbuckling tailor, and his charismatic salesman business partner, Gaetano Savini, Brioni took its name from an island in the Adriatic, once a favoured haunt of Italian and other European high society before the second world war. After Rome was liberated, it proved the perfect place to fan the flames of an Italian sartorial renaissance. It had the climate of the south, which encouraged outdoor living, and the ritual passegiata, or evening promenade, which required finery from both sexes. It also had a male population desperate to gloss over the privation of post-war life.
As photographer William Klein remarked in 1959: "The purchase of fabric is certainly very important to the Roman man. So is presenting the bella figura. For him, clothing comes before food."
Fonticoli and Savini recognised this truth for what it was, and business thrived. They rode the Italian economic miracle, which saw the rise of cars by Fiat and scooters by Vespa. The nearby film studios at Cinecittà brought the American stars to Rome and many stopped by at Brioni - Henry Fonda, Clark Gable, John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Kirk Douglas, Gary Cooper. Indeed it was the Americans who really took to the firm, recognising its innovative styling as something fresher than the British-inspired fare they were still being offered at home. In 1959, Gentleman's Quarterly called Brioni "the American's tailor".
As modern-day fan (and American) writer Jay McInerney says: "The concept of 'men's fashion' was practically invented in a small shop on Rome's Via Barberini. At the same time Dior was creating the 'New Look' for women in post-war Paris, the new Roman firm of Brioni began to challenge the hegemony of English menswear with a brighter palette, lighter fabrics, and less restrictive clothing."
No one had seen anything like this before: a bright red tuxedo jacket, a pearl-coloured dinner jacket over a double-breasted pink waistcoat and cobalt blue trousers, a cocktail suit in gold silk. In 1952 Brioni held the first-ever fashion show in the history of menswear in the Pitti Palace in Florence, and 1954 it repeated the feat in New York. At a time when male models didn't really exist, Brioni's boys became catwalk regulars, as the firm staged almost a show a month for the next 25 years.
Pre-1960, all Brioni's output was bespoke - handmade in its entirety. But as demand outstripped its capacity, the founders set up a factory in Penne, Fonticoli's home town, to semi-automate the production process. This was another first. The factory is still there, taking the measurements provided by tailors at retail and converting them into the finished garment on a production line - albeit one that requires 150 steps and up to 30 hours' work on one suit. To ensure the craft didn't die out, Brioni even created a school at Penne to train 20 tailors a year.
Now, under Angeloni, Brioni is on a roll again. "The problem with tailoring today is that it is considered conservative," says Angeloni. "It was not always the case, especially with bespoke, which used to be the most avant-garde option. You could have what you wanted." He points to a photo on the wall of Peter Sellers in a Brioni coat in swirly astrakhan. Austin Powers, eat your heart out.
www.brioni.com
Peter Howarth is the consultant creative director of Esquire
) I promise to scan and post them for our mutual enjoyment. 
Thanks for the explanation.