Neapolitan tailoring ★

The problem it solves

An English jacket gets its shape from structure: a horsehair canvas pad-stitched into a curve, a shoulder pad, a full lining, and cloth heavy enough to hold what the tailor presses into it. In Naples in August, all of that is unbearable.

So the Neapolitan trade removed it and found other ways to make the coat sit. Shape comes instead from the cut of the panels, from how the cloth is shrunk and stretched with an iron before it is sewn, and from an armhole cut high and small enough that the coat stays put when the arm moves. It is a harder way to make a jacket, not an easier one; there is nothing inside to hide behind.

What you can actually see

• Spalla camicia: the shirt shoulder. The sleeve is set into the body with a small excess of cloth gathered at the head, so a row of soft ripples runs along the top of the shoulder. Nothing about it is structural; it is a consequence of how the sleeve is attached.
• Barchetta breast pocket: cut on a gentle curve like a little boat, rather than straight.
• Patch pockets: applied to the outside rather than set into the cloth, usually including the hip pockets, often with a rounded bottom.
• Open quarters: the front edges of the jacket curve away below the button, rather than falling straight.
• Three-roll-two: a three-button front where the lapel is pressed to roll softly over the top button.
• Minimal or no lining: frequently a half or quarter lining, with the internal seams finished by hand.

What it is not

It is not automatically better, and it is not automatically more work. A well-made unstructured jacket represents an enormous amount of skilled labour; a badly made one is simply a jacket with nothing in it, and the market is full of the second sort sold as the first.

It also does not suit every body or every purpose. The style is forgiving of movement and unforgiving of posture: without a canvas to impose a chest, a Neapolitan coat shows exactly what is underneath it. And in a cold climate, in a formal setting, the softness that reads as elegant in Naples can read as unmade.