Eat. Bespoke. Love (my Italian trip report)

[WeakMonday]

If there’s anything I’ve learned from lurking Styleforum over the years, it is that one can only truly find themselves in Italy. So as 2014 was ending, I decided to do as others before me have (Mafoofan, Gazman, Maomao, Julia Roberts etc…) and go on a journey of self discovery (as well as an information gathering mission for my future menswear store in Shanghai).

Here are the highlights of my trip (in chronological order):
Florence (Jan 9-15)
Pitti Uomo
Casa Dei Tessuti (picked up Solaro suiting and some shirting fabrics)
Simone Abbarchi (two shirts)
Passaggio Cravatte (great guy, great ties and introduced me to Mimmo Pirozzi)
Acquacotta (Bistecca)

Naples (Jan 15-21)
Mimmo Pirozzi (double breasted Solaro 2p suit)
Gianni Volpe (single breasted Tonik 3p suit)
EG Cappelli (got me a tie)
Pompeii (rainy crappy day)

Rome (Jan 21,22)
just sight seeing (wife made an executive decision)

Milan (Jan 22-25)
Il Vecchio Drapiere (picked up an unfunded liability)
Bestetti (visited his workshop in Vigevano, regret not ordering anything, will definitely order later this year)

Special thanks to @unbelragazzo (lots of valuable advice and helped translate at first fitting with Mimmo), @marcodalondra (great informative posts on Neapolitan tailoring as well as very helpful with information) and NMWA (inspiration, generous with information and the Sozzi wool socks I bought from them were a revelation for my long journey).

I hope to have full reports written up on each city (I suspect I may just wax poetic about Naples for a few pages and write one to two sentences for the other cities) as well as some posts on the artisans.

Some teaser pics for you guys…




Florence (this being pretty representative of the color palette of the city)




Naples



Milan


Volpe


Pirozzi

 

[jrd617]

Simone Abbarchi (two shirts)
Passaggio Cravatte (great guy, great ties and introduced me to Mimmo Pirozzi)

 

[hippotamus]

Looking foward, especially on Mimmo Pirozzi & Gianni Volpe !

 

[SartodiNapoli]

We hava a case of a person ( on this case victim) of those i have exposed since my first post, those who use forums and blogs to get money out of tourist who want to learn to dress and got garments way far from the good Neapolitan quality others do supply ( while this alleged get his % of the order) So is my duty to help as i always do, this people to get the most possible honest tailoring industry ( where some of those DO NOT belong)

I hope some of those you mentioned deliver on the contrary to happened( and i already expossed before) to several clients who got their garments several years later, or didn´t get.

It seems some poster spents all his time sending PMs to new members to see if he can get some % of the orders of his recommended tailors, some of them delivered years later as all we know, confirmed by several members who got this spam by a so called " expert and assesor" about tailoring.

Beware and good luck.

Also beware in Naples with street sellers of Iphones and street gambling etc, they deliver you the original box but with a brick of same weight inside.
Same behaviour as this "experts", also beware on some fabric shops, as they sell second and third defective and discharted by the mill but at premium price, this is another of the recommended by the "expert". On that shop also sells fake Carlo Riva, the owner of Carlo Riva himself already told it to me on his factory in Como.

Beware with this also bloggers, as i always expose to help honest customers who want to buy but get onto the webs of this others.

Also, if you are opening a shop, some you mentioned are way far from being the best ( some even do not know themselves to sew a single button but show off they do), i am sorry to say. In some cases delivered very defective tailoring as i also have expossed. Please do not follow blogger hypes and maintain yourself as far as possible from those and hear to people who really WORKS inside the industry and with a clean feedback instead ( again any blogger)

 

[Journeyman]

Passaggio Cravatte (great guy, great ties and introduced me to Mimmo Pirozzi)

Well, I just hope that Gianni treats you better than he's treated quite a few other customers on this forum.

 

[jedwards]

Ignore all the negative comments OP, this looks like it could be a good thread. Thanks for sharing pictures.

 

[Grammaton Cleric]



Ignore all the negative comments OP, this looks like it could be a good thread. Thanks for sharing pictures.

+1

 

[WeakMonday]

Thanks for all the bumps guys!

Here is an outline for my experience with Mimmo Pirozzi:

January 14th -

By some coincidence (a big event was happening... roughly translated I think it was either "pitiful man" or "man to be pitied"... my Italian vocabulary is very basic, 50% of which consists of the various shoulder constructions for a suit), Mimmo happened to be in Florence while I was there. So I happily handed him my Solaro fabric that I was preparing to give to him on the 15th. Gianni helped out with translation (mind you his English is probably about 20-30 words better than my Italian

).

January 15th -

The wife and I took the high speed train to Naples from Florence and met up with Mimmo at his place around 2. From there he drew onto the fabric and had the basted(?) fitting (I'll call it the first fitting) around 4ish. After we left, my wife and I did a little shopping and in one of the shops where I managed to convince the owner (Mario) to translate for me with Mimmo (I negotiated a fee of like 15 euros for twenty bucks to which he agreed). So we went back up and he did a little translation which was very helpful. Mario ended up refusing to take the agreed upon fee. Most random Neapolitans I ended up meeting were pretty much like this... extremely nice and very friendly.

January 17th -

I went in the morning (10 am) for my second fitting (David was kind enough to join and help with translations) and then went again in the evening (7 pm) for my third fitting.


January 20th -

Went in the morning and spent about 2-3 hours watching Mimmo do some finishing touches on the jacket and the trousers.

The wife and I ended up spending about 10 hours just hanging out with Mimmo at his sartoria, drinking espressos, just watching them work.


Now some pictures from the 14th and 15th...


January 14th

Handing the maestro my Solaro




Trying to show him on the phone the kind of the look I'm going for (spalla piu larghe, spalla morbida, spalla rotunda, SPALLA LIKE-A TAKA)...

January 15th

Measurements


Cutting


A badass jacket in the works for some lucky guy



Mimmo and his crew were really proud of this one




After two hours...

 

[jedwards]

Amazing camel coat

 

[Newcomer]

Bump, thanks for sharing, look forward to more posts!

 

[WeakMonday]

Mimmo Pirozzi (continued)

January 17th-
Second Fitting



Third Fitting (Just Jacket)




January 20th (Finished)




Will post multiple angle pics with detailed pornographic shots once I get my shirts from Florence

 

[SartodiNapoli]

I hope the two last pics are not the finished suit, as i was sure this would be, is defective tailoring and sleeves, waist and trousers, leaves a lot be be desired. Sorry, do not say i didn´t warn time ago about.

This examples of no good tailoring is what i try to help posters to do not get.

Might be " maestro" but i can tell you that delivering such a wrong fit into the exam nowadays, by any reason could pass it and should get bounced so no maestro, and even no degree.

This are the simple truth and rules about tailoring and if others want ignore, not me but the RULES of tailoring, is their problem. I am the one who follows the rules and getting the degrees instead.

Good luck on your next commision, hope you get a tailor who can represent the real pride of Neapolitan tailoring now shown here yet.

 

[chogall]

In your expert opinion, what's wrong with the suit in the last pictures?

 

[jedwards]

WeakMonday

I cannot claim to be a tailor, or someone who studies under a master neopolitan tailor, so my opinion is only a layman, but I think your suit looks nice and fits well.

This repeated negativity for the sake of being negative and critical of pretty much every other tailor is just getting silly now.

Sarto, you are not adding ANYTHING constructive to these type of threads. If you were, then fair enough, but I don't see it.

The guy did * not * post asking for people to 'critique' his suit, he posted to share with people who may be interested. I am interested to see and read of people's experiences. Some stuff I don't like, but say nothing. If you are not interested or don't like that particular tailor's work, that's fine but you are really not adding anything to this thread and the danger is with such negativity, people like the OP will not bother to share photos, which many people DO find helpful.

 

[SartodiNapoli]

In your expert opinion, what's wrong with the suit in the last pictures?

I already said but i paste
is defective tailoring and sleeves, waist and trousers, leaves a lot be be desired. Sorry, do not say i didn´t warn time ago about.


Sleeves are not clean, waist leaves a lot of room there, and trouser is the worst of it, the trouser box is baggy and doesn´t looks good on him, ( is obvious) also how is that the client who is going to open a garment shop leaves with a bad hemmed trouser ( the basic rules of fit is to avoid the trouser hanging doing those pleats over the shoe) also the tailor lets a trouser go out of his place like this, is like getting a burnt steak on a restaurant. Not acceptable.



This things irritates me a lot and is what i try to help with my most of my denunce post and since my first ever post.

Is when a person who obviously has very low knowledge about tailoring as on this case, goes to a hyped tailor because some blogger or internet guy who spends all day looking for clients to fullfill his own budget out of the comissions he sends there, pays a lot more than would cost on a decent less know tailor but gets a bad garment overpriced.



At least the jacket looks a bit better than the several of this same tailor already posted on this forum, or the others i handled on our tailoring school and on the house of a (obvious ex-client forever) of him but on the two last pics, it doesn´t looks on a bespoke suit, but no pun intented, trying on a random rtw suit on a random shop.


EDITED;

To my haters, who also know very low about tailoring and dare to try to censor me or confusing readers calling my help posts with what they manipulate as negativity. I try to help customers to go to decent tailors and to avoid internet hype and obvious shill of malicious people who gets cash out of sending honest people as i am sure WeakMonday is, to expensive not very good and hyped tailors, just because those gets cash out of it.

If you don´t like that, ok, but is my moral and local duty to help that and HONESTY.

Negativity is;

to get dishonest behaviours run and also ruin the name of good honest annonymous tailors who do not book shills or pay for fake reviews giving those higher note than the others who doesn´t pays( as I have expossed several bloggers who did that)


Negativity is;

To do not share advanced tailoring knowledge to help customers as this to get better fits for following commisions.


And finally and using your words, is HELPFUL for tons of posters who give me thanks for your post, as you saved me to get a bad overpriced garment.

That is silly as you called me or also called to the honesty of a business you do not belong to but it do or try to do with the higher honesty as possible?

Period.

I do not shill any tailor btw or send spam messages to posters to send them to x or xy tailors, just saying.