Yahoo Lifestyle Cesare Attolini Brings Neapolitan Style to London With New Store
It’s perhaps the ultimate in irony.
In the 1930s, Vincenzo Attolini, a young tailor from Naples, set out to create an alternative to Savile Row suits with their padded shoulders and stiff canvas construction. He developed a new silhouette that was light and unstructured, and it soon came to define Neapolitan style.
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The business passed to Vincenzo’s son Cesare who studied in Turin at one of the city’s most prestigious tailoring schools and then returned to Naples and the family business.
Today, Cesare Attolini’s sons, Massimiliano and Giuseppe Attolini, are running the company and have been working to develop a higher profile. That includes opening retail stores in key cities around the world, including London where they have just opened a boutique selling their distinct alternative to Savile Row tailoring. The two-level, 220-square-meter Cesare Attolini store at 19 Mount Street features the company’s ready-to-wear on the ground floor as well as a bespoke department and VIP room on the lower level.
“We wanted to open in London five or six years ago,” said Massimiliano Attolini, president of the family-owned business. “People said it was blasphemy to come into the tailoring city and open a tailoring shop, but we’ve found that young men are looking for timeless, contemporary and comfortable clothing.”
He said London is “a global hub for style and culture,” and shoppers there “truly appreciate a tailored suit. So it is a natural home for us.”
He said the company was offered “a lot of locations over the past four years, and we said no to Bond Street and others.” Instead, they held out until they found just the right spot, and for them, it was Mount Street.
He characterized Mount Street as “one of the most elegant streets in London,” and the shop is located next to Scott’s, a popular and pricey seafood restaurant.
Attolini said the shop, which had a soft opening about a week ago, has already been performing above expectations. “We were totally surprised,” he said. “It’s doing really well.”
Among the most popular items are sport coats, which are created from proprietary fabrics. “All our fabrics are exclusive and people like that,” he said.
The store also offers some exclusive jackets created from fabrics sourced from a small artisan mill in Scotland.
The store design is distinct to the city and Attolini said it features a “contemporary but clean and timeless layout. It represents the core value of the brand.”
As the store gets more established, Attolini believes it will attract both locals and international visitors. “The street is very international and Savile Row tailoring has totally changed. The English people are looking for Neopolitan style — soft relaxed jackets with very light linings. That’s our history and tradition. It’s been almost 100 years, but the [make] is nearly the same: very light without a padded shoulder — like a second skin.”
Looking ahead, Attolini said the company hopes to bring this distinct style to other locations around the world. The London unit is its fifth company-owned store following New York City, Miami, Milan and Monte Carlo. “When we open a store, we wait around a year to see how it works,” he said. But there are already other locations on his radar including Tokyo, Munich, Dubai and Los Angeles.
But while the third generation is more aggressive about expansion than their ancestors, the process will remain slow and intentional because of the nature of the business.
Cesare Attolini employs 120 artisan tailors in Naples who are trained in the specific art of creating an Attolini garment. Each suit can take 25 to 30 hours to complete and only 30 jackets a day are produced. The ready-to-wear jackets retail for $6,500 to $7,500 while suits sell for $7,500 to $9,500. Custom garments start at 30 percent more. Because of the detail and handwork in each garment, Cesare Attolini keeps its production limited to around 7,000 garments a year.
And there are no plans to significantly expand production as more stores open. Instead, the number of wholesale accounts may be trimmed. “This is Cesare Attolini 2.0,” he said.
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