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Bespoke tailoring in Naples: the houses and how to choose
Naples has the world's densest cluster of serious bespoke tailoring, nine workshops close together, all making soft, lightly padded jackets that differ in proportion and price.
Naples has the highest concentration of serious bespoke tailoring in the world, and almost all of it makes a recognisably similar coat: soft shoulder, light chest, high armhole, open quarters. What varies is proportion, the degree of exaggeration, the price, and how much of the work stays in the house.
What all of them share
A jacket built to be light and to move: little or no chest canvas, an unpadded shoulder, a high small armhole, patch pockets, a curved breast pocket and open quarters. Handwork is extensive everywhere, because there is no structure to hide behind.
Prices sit below London and Paris for comparable work, which is the reason the city's international clientele grew as fast as it did.
How the houses differ
The axis that matters is restraint. At one end are workshops making the version of the style that existed before the international market arrived: a fuller chest, a longer coat, a shoulder that is soft rather than collapsed. At the other are houses making a coat with the signatures amplified, which photographs extremely well.
The second axis is scale. Rubinacci and Cesare Attolini are businesses with shops, ready-to-wear and international distribution; Solito, Panico, Dalcuore and Ciardi are workshops. Neither is better; they are different transactions.
Practical notes
- Most workshops are by appointment and several have no shopfront. The shop with the best window is not reliably the one with the best cutter.
- Much of the trade closes for most of August.
- Ask who will make the coat. Outworking is traditional and is the main variable in consistency.
- Expect two to three fittings and roughly three to six months. If you commission at a trunk show abroad, expect longer.
- The Chiaia district (Via Filangieri, Via dei Mille, Via Calabritto) holds the shops; the workrooms are scattered through the centre.
A note on rankings
This site does not publish an ordered list of the best tailors in Naples, because the ordering would be fiction. The houses below are listed with what is documented about each, and the differences between them are differences of style and scale rather than of rank.
The only reliable way to choose is to look at finished coats, ideally on people rather than on hangers, and decide which silhouette you want to wear.
Images
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Crédits photographiques 2
- A soft Neapolitan-style linen jacket by a window: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
- ViaChiaiaNapoli: Photograph · IlSistemone · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0