gennaro paone: former head tailor of rubinacci

mafoofan said:

Actually, if you can muster the reading comprehension, all actual Rubinacci clients have posted similar experiences and perspectives in this thread. But again, please carry on the show. Let's hear more from what other tailors and non-clients have to say.

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Grammaton Cleric said:

I don't know why you keep on arguing with Foo. He has been crystal clear on the point that Mariano's role cannot be defined by mere mortals, and he is very much a gestalt entity encompassing a tailor, stylist, hunter, gatherer, kung-fu master, and all-round mensch

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mafoofan said:

So, let me understand, your position rests on Luca's English?

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dieworkwear said:

FWIW, I recently interviewed Luca for a magazine and he conveyed the same thing. He said his role was to help clients find their own personal style and this is what makes Rubinacci special. That they don't force a certain look on a customer, but rather try to help him find what's right for him.

Admittedly, a lot of bespoke tailoring houses say this. I think it's part marketing line and part reality, but it is their standard marketing line. He even used the term bespoke stylist, which he seemed to try to push in his interview with StyleForum.

His English isn't the best, but it's very good and I don't see any reason to doubt his message because of his language skills.

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mafoofan said:

Again, if one were to actually use them, he wouldn't need to rely on interviews and their English skills to know what they do.

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unbelragazzo said:

While at Pitti, I was able to catch up with Luca Rubinacci, scion of the famed Neapolitan tailoring house and colorful iDandy. My thanks to him for fitting in our meeting between snowboarding photo ops. I have edited all hashtags out of our conversation. Here's what we talked about.


DI: I've noticed some of your jackets that I've seen in pictures are made a little bit differently from the standard Rubinacci house style.

LR: Everyone asks me this - they say, "Luca we never understand your style, because it's always changing." But I always reply that I'm like an ice cream maker. I cannot make the best ice cream if I'm not testing it. In the past, maybe there was the Neapolitan tailoring house, and the English culture, and the Milanese culture. Today, it's the world. We travel all over the world. Why does a customer in Kazakstan have to go in the winter to Huntsman and in the summer to Rubinacci?

What I want to build is a modern tailoring house. What many people and aficionados of the business don't know, is that Neapolitan culture is in the structure, not in the style. The style is for the customer. When you see more wrinkle here or spalla camicia there, this is style. The Neapolitan structure is inside the jacket - it's less canvas, shaping the waist with a high armhole. This I will never go away from. This is my father's style. But what I want to build is mixing this with the customer's needs. If the customer wants a short jacket because he's short and wants to feel taller, let's give him a short jacket. Why does he have to go to Tom Ford to have it?

Luca is the window of Rubinacci. I have fun. Whenever a customer comes to me, I know how to reply. But if you don't test on yourself, how are you going to be a bespoke stylist? I'm not talking about [clothes meant] "to be seen." This is not gentleman. I always push hard, but I always think that I'm on the edge. I try to be on the edge. I will never wear, as is the fashion now with trousers here (indicates the current fad for slim tapered legs and cropped hems) to show my legs. My father always told me, be a gentleman, but do what you want to do. Feel comfortable, and you will show your comfortability.

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mafoofan said:

So, let me understand, your position rests on Luca's English?

Hiring a "stylist" in the U.S. will get you a person who does something very different from what Mariano or Luca do. I don't think they mean "stylist" the way an American speaker of English means it. They only started using the word "bespoke" a few years ago. For a long time, they were saying "made to measure."

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mafoofan said:

Again, if one were to actually use them, he wouldn't need to rely on interviews and their English skills to know what they do.

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dieworkwear said:

This is true. I don't even order from the Tailor Tasting Menu, I just interview the food items.

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dieworkwear said:

I'm waiting for someone to pull Mariano into this thread, like Woody Allen did to Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall.

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Manton said:

It's not 100%, though. Remember the Vonnegut episode from <I>Back to School</I>. You never know how these things are going to turn out.

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Grammaton Cleric said:

I don't know why you keep on arguing with Foo.

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coolpapa said:

A general question for participants in this thread: How do you have time to make all these posts throughout the day? Seems like many work in pretty intense fields and I don't know how you find the time to do this. Do your bosses know you're on here ******* off all day?

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