Bespoke tailor · Naples · Founded 1932
Rubinacci
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Rubinacci is the oldest and best-known tailoring house in Naples, founded in 1932, where the soft Neapolitan jacket without heavy padding was first created.
Rubinacci is the oldest and best-known Neapolitan tailoring house. Founded in 1932 as London House by Gennaro Rubinacci, it employed Vincenzo Attolini, the cutter usually credited with stripping the English coat of its structure to create the modern Neapolitan jacket. It is now run by the third generation and holds an archive of cloth going back decades.
Where the style begins
Gennaro Rubinacci was a collector and an aesthete before he was a tailor, and London House (the name is the clue) began by selling English cloth and English style to Neapolitan customers. What happened next is the origin story of an entire tradition: the house's cutter, Vincenzo Attolini, began removing the structure from the English coat, and by the 1930s was making a jacket with almost no canvas, no padding and a shoulder that followed the body.
Whether one man invented the Neapolitan jacket is a fair question; the trade was moving in that direction and other workshops were experimenting, but this is the workshop where the change is best documented, and the house's continuity means the line from then to now is unbroken.
The house today
Mariano Rubinacci, Gennaro's son, took the house international; the third generation is now involved. Alongside bespoke, Rubinacci sells ready-to-wear and accessories, and it has a shop presence in Milan and London as well as Naples.
The house's cloth archive is a genuine asset rather than a marketing point: a large holding of vintage and reserved cloths, some of it decades old, from which customers can commission. There are very few places in the world where that is possible.
What the coat looks like
A soft, natural shoulder, frequently with the gathered spalla camicia sleeve head; a light or absent chest canvas; open quarters; patch pockets and a curved barchetta breast pocket. The jacket is short by English standards and the armhole is cut high.
Rubinacci's version is on the more elegant, less exaggerated end of the Neapolitan range: the gathering at the shoulder is present but restrained, and the house has never chased the extremely soft, extremely shrunken look that some Neapolitan workshops adopted for photographs.
The archive
The house holds a substantial quantity of vintage and reserved cloth: lengths bought decades ago and kept, including patterns and weights that mills no longer produce. Customers can commission from it.
This is a genuine resource rather than a marketing story, and it is close to unique. Cloth from the 1950s and 1960s is not merely older; it is generally heavier, and it tailors and hangs in a way modern light cloth cannot. A jacket cut from a fifty-year-old length is a different object.
The record
What it costs
Prices across the site →These are not quotations. Prices below are the most recent figures we could attribute to a source, shown in the currency they were published in.
| What | Service | Price | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bespoke jacketAn indicative band, not a quotation. Bespoke entry prices normally exclude tax and cloth beyond the house bunch, and houses raise them without announcement. | Bespoke | €3,800–6,000 | September 2026 |
| Two-piece bespoke suitAn indicative band, not a quotation. Bespoke entry prices normally exclude tax and cloth beyond the house bunch, and houses raise them without announcement. | Bespoke | €5,000–8,000 | September 2026 |
Where they travel
Find a maker who visits you →Trunk shows let a house take orders and hold fittings away from its own workshop. Dates move; treat this as the pattern, not a calendar, and confirm with the house.
| City | Roughly | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| LondonDocumented as travelling here for fittings. Schedules change; confirm directly with the house. | — | — |
| New YorkDocumented as travelling here for fittings. Schedules change; confirm directly with the house. | — | — |
| TokyoDocumented as travelling here for fittings. Schedules change; confirm directly with the house. | — | — |
Houses often considered alongside it
Grouped because they compete for the same commission or work in a comparable idiom: not a ranking, and not an equivalence.
01
Cesare Attolini
Cesare Attolini is a Neapolitan clothing house run by descendants of the creator of the soft Neapolitan jacket, and it produces in volume while keeping much of the work done by…
02
Liverano & Liverano
The house that made Florentine tailoring internationally legible: wide lapel, round chest, no dart.
03
Sartoria Solito
Sartoria Solito is a small family tailor in Naples making very traditional jackets by appointment, and it is admired by fellow tailors and experienced customers.
Set side by side
Sources
- House history , Rubinacci.
Where a figure is disputed or a house has not published it, the page says so rather than choosing a number.
Picture credits 4
- An illustration of the house's recorded cut: natural shoulder, light canvas chest, soft, short, open quarters. Not a photograph of the house's own work.: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
- An illustration of the house's recorded cut: shirt shoulder, light canvas chest, soft neapolitan, high armhole. Not a photograph of the house's own work.: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
- An illustration of the house's recorded cut: soft shoulder, light canvas chest, rounded, wide lapel, dartless front. Not a photograph of the house's own work.: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
- An illustration of the house's recorded cut: natural shoulder, light canvas chest, traditional neapolitan. Not a photograph of the house's own work.: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art