Interview with Mina Adamo and Dino Romano of Napolisumisura, Part I

Mina Adamo of Napolisumisura has acquired a faithful following on StyleForum, as chronicled in this thread. Mina and partner Dino Romano have now marked a new stage of their journey by opening a beautiful new location in Naples, a stone's throw from Attolini, Formosa, and Rubinacci. A balcony, ready to host clients for coffee and conversation, overlooks Via dei Mille. We interviewed Mina and Dino to commemorate the occasion.

This interview will be published in two parts, this being the first part and the second to follow shortly.

StyleForum: How did decide to enter into the world of menswear?

Mina Adamo: Primarily because it's my passion, because I like it. Because I like clothes, both for men and for women. But for men's clothes, perhaps from my father, who was always visiting the sartoria, was born an interest in menswear. And then also being here in Naples, I was fortunate because here it's easy to find work in menswear.

SF: So your father was a client, but didn't himself work in a sartoria?

MA: Yes.

SF: It seems like today, everyone working in tailoring comes from a family of tailors.

MA: Among the older people, yes. But their children have gone on to other careers. They haven't believed in this work. And it has been a low-paying career, historically. Many of the old tailors wanted their children to go to school and have a better paying job. So only rarely have the children of tailors followed in their footsteps. So much so that now we are trying to do classes for young people, because they aren't being taught by their parents.

Dino Romano: Also the younger generations did not believe in the strength of this type of activity. They didn't believe in the potential of learning this trade, and unite it with a minimal amount of business skills, and see that it is really something exceptional. Today, especially with the general economic crisis, there are some that are trying to rediscover this heritage, which isn't easy, because the old tailors of today aren't always willing and able teachers. Teaching is a different skill from doing.

SF: How do you choose the tailors that you hire?

MA: By having them make trial versions of our jackets! Dino has a series of jackets that are not that great. There's no other way.

DR: And also we look for tailors who are able to work for us, in our team. We have found some tailors who, while being very good, were completely unable to work as part of a team.

MA: There are many tailors who are good at what they do, but unable to understand what a client wants. And that's part of the difference that Napolisumisura is making. Besides offering jackets and suits, “Napolisumisura” is offering a service, which the tailors by themselves aren't able to do – consistency in our products, frequent visits, punctuality in delivery, quick in responding to emails, which even well-known names sometimes do not do. Beyond having a product that is high quality, which I would not want to compromise by one iota, to be present and responsive to the client, which a tailor can't always do.

A jacket from Napolisumisura means a jacket with all the characteristics of the Neapolitan sartoria, united with the desires of the client. A tailor may only want to produce his type of jacket. Already when you start to ask, for example, for less fullness at the sleevehead, which is a Neapolitan characteristic which American clients sometimes want less of, already the tailor may get frustrated because he's always made his jackets that way.

SF: What are the other characteristics of a Neapolitan jacket?

MA: The cut. The cut is fundamental. Then a deconstructed jacket is more popular here; we try to put as little as possible inside a jacket, whereas an English jacket is more defined and constructed.

DR: The jacket has its own natural form. If you hang the jacket up, it maintains its shape, not from canvas or wadding, but from the cut and the ironing. It's not flat, but has its own dimensionality. A more English jacket will stay more fixed and rigid, but a Neapolitan jacket has a more natural roundness that also moves with the wearer.

MA: For example the canvas has a shape, but it's not just how it's cut. It can then be moulded into different shapes. So when I pull on a jacket at the fittings, I'm shaping the canvas to your shoulders. In the process of making a jacket, 40 percent of the time spent is the tailor ironing the canvas. This gives a shape to the canvas that is appropriate for the client's needs. And that is a characteristic of the Neapolitan sartoria.

SF: How will the jacket change over time?

MA: Over time the canvas will adapt to the body of the wearer. Sometimes a client will bring us a jacket a few years to have a thorough pressing, but once the canvas has been ironed and stitched to the cloth, it maintains its shape. It will never return to its original shape, before being touched by an iron.

DR: The Neapolitan jacket becomes always more a part of the wearer, even if the wearer changes his own shape somewhat. A more "international" jacket, with a firmer shoulder and more constructed, it will always have that shape, no matter who wears it. Our jacket is more almost a cardigan, that adapts, and becomes more yours.


In case you have forgotten where you are, the windows remind you.


The balcony overlooking the busy street below. I was unlucky and got rained on the whole time I was in Naples.


Mina's office, filled with jackets ready for shipment to the United States.


Mannequins in the window, ready to be outfitted in Napolisumisura gear.

"“Napolisumisura is offering a service, which the tailors by themselves aren't able to do – consistency in our products, frequent visits, punctuality in delivery, quick in responding to emails, which even well-known names sometimes do not do."

Very true, and a facet of NSM's business that I appreciate.

Good interview Unbelragazzo. Dino and Mina and such nice people. It is a pleasure working with them. I look forward to visiting their new studios this fall in Naples.

Did they recommend a favorite place for pizza?



pocketsquareguy said:

Good interview Unbelragazzo. Dino and Mina and such nice people. It is a pleasure working with them. I look forward to visiting their new studios this fall in Naples.

Did they recommend a favorite place for pizza?

Click to expand...

Off topic: Tbh, I didn't find the Neapolitans pizza that exceptional (Good, but not the best, or at least those I tried, which are the more famous ones). If you're in NYC, I would try Capizzi Pizza at Hell's Kitchen. The last I had it, admittedly some time ago, it was good. That's the Prosciutto and Argula. (If somebody teaches me how to use 'spoilers' that will be helpful).

Not to derail the thread, but we did have a conversation about pizza...over...a pizza. Mina told me which was her favorite, which I now forget. But mostly she told me that Neapolitans take their pizza seriously, but everybody has a different favorite. Sorbillo is probably the most famous, but it's a cab ride away from the clothes-shopping district.

More famous than Da Michele?

Da Michele was -- okay (to me, since tastes are subjective). Foo, have you had Capizzi?

No, but I loved Da Michele. Matozzi on Filangieri is also really good.

Never been to Capizzi. In the U.S. I've had a lot of Neapolitan pizza with decent crust, but the cheese never compares to what you get in Naples, which is creamy and very pungently milky at its best. The stuff over here is almost always rubbery and somewhat flavorless.

Small sample size, but when I told friends in Florence and Bologna that I was going to Naples, "are you going to Sorbillo?" was the most common pizza-related question I got.

You have to try Capizzi. I've no idea about the standards now but they were really exceptional -- the ingredients were stellar and I could taste the quality of the Parma, the bitterness of the Argula etc. Can't recall much about the cheese, however -- and since it didn't leave an impression, you're probably right on the cheese but it was a long time ago.

Let us know if you do try it.

This says a bit, I think -- http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restau...s-Capizzi-New_York_City_New_York.html#REVIEWS

I should have made time to try Sorbillo -- on my to do list. What I was most surprised about was how cheap pizza is over there, relative to the US and London.

The dairy in the US just doesn't compare to Italy. (Or most other EU countries, for that matter.) I once had a mozzarella in Maremma that you can only get there on Wednesday. It almost made me cry.

Thanks for the interview! It's interesting to hear from some people who came from outside a family business.

Anybody knows when they are coming into the US after their february visit? May or June?

Dunno but they usually update to this page once they schedule a visit:

http://www.napolisumisura.com/news.php

When I was grown up enough to care, and I grew up with a lot of Italian immigrants, Rome was the place on romance, of the "Continental silhouette" and the Trevi, and Cary Grant in Brioni, and all of that. Milan was the acknowledged leader of fashion, which is to say, ready-to-wear. Naples was the city that Italians all wanted to ignore, and the rest of the world forgot. It was seen as a bit of an embarrassment.

A lot of these guys would go back to Italy regularly for vacation, and to get suited and booted, and none of them would go to Naples. It was Rome or Milan, depending on whether they were Northerners or Southerners. It's encouraging to see houses like Mina and Dino's really embrace modern business practices to complement their tailoring tradition and make it known to Italians and non-Italians alike.

I know Mina cares not only about making and exporting great clothes, but also exporting a more positive image of Naples, which is caricatured in film and other media both in Italy and in the United States. It would be hard to think of a community of people that is more loyal to their own city than the Neapolitans. It's not even that they badmouth the city but would never leave, as a New Yorker would, they are unabashedly and devotedly in love with the city.