Sources and how we use them
Every page lists what it drew on. This page names the categories, the standing sources behind the whole database, and what each is and is not good for.
The database holds 44 source records attached to 470 entries. Individual citations appear at the foot of the page they support.
Primary and institutional
- Houses' own published material. Best for services offered, price lists where published, addresses, and the house's account of its own history. Weakest on founding dates: firms round them, inherit them from a predecessor business, or date from a lineage rather than an incorporation. Where a house's claimed date is contested the page says so.
- Company registries and filings. Reliable for ownership, corporate structure and legal name. Frequently reveal that a familiar name is a trademark held by a group rather than the original firm.
- Museum and archive open-access collections: principally the Metropolitan Museum of Art's costume holdings and comparable institutions. The best available evidence for what garments actually looked like before photography was widespread, and the source of much of this site's historical imagery.
- Trade bodies and consortia: wool and cashmere trade organisations, textile associations, national craft registers. Useful for fibre standards, production figures and the definitions behind terms like Super numbers.
Published literature and reporting
- Books on tailoring, shoemaking and textiles. The standing reference for technique and history; cited by title, author and year.
- Independent publications and specialist writing with a named author. Cited and linked; never reproduced.
- General press for corporate events: acquisitions, closures, successions.
Photography
Images come from Wikimedia Commons and museum open-access collections, each with its own licence recorded in the database and displayed beneath the image. See the image licensing policy for the full rules and the licence breakdown.
News
Trade headlines are collected from the public feeds of named publications, shown with the publisher, and linked to the original. Il Sartoriale does not republish their text. Publishers who would rather not be included can write to us and the feed will be removed.
Most-cited publishers
| Publisher or institution | Citations |
|---|---|
| Savile Row Bespoke Association | 4 |
| The Metropolitan Museum of Art | 4 |
| UK Parliament | 3 |
| Victoria and Albert Museum | 2 |
| CITES | 1 |
| European Commission | 1 |
| Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute | 1 |
| Loro Piana | 1 |
| Vitale Barberis Canonico | 1 |
| John Lobb Bootmaker | 1 |
| Edward Green | 1 |
| International Wool Textile Organisation | 1 |
| Fox Brothers | 1 |
| Cifonelli | 1 |
| Pepys | 1 |
| Hachette Bunko / powerHouse Books | 1 |
| Kiton | 1 |
| Brioni | 1 |
| Northampton Museum and Art Gallery | 1 |
| Harris Tweed Authority | 1 |
| Kering | 1 |
| Liverano & Liverano | 1 |
| Charvet | 1 |
| LVMH | 1 |
| Huntsman | 1 |
| Cesare Attolini | 1 |
| The Woolmark Company | 1 |
| Anderson & Sheppard | 1 |
| powerHouse Books (English edition) | 1 |
| Rubinacci | 1 |
| Könemann | 1 |
| IUCN Red List of Threatened Species | 1 |
| Museo di Capodimonte | 1 |
| Regnery History | 1 |
| Henry Poole & Co | 1 |
What we will not cite
Content generated by other AI systems. Aggregators that do not name their own sources. Retail listings presented as editorial. Any page whose commercial relationship with its subject is undisclosed.