This summer suit from Sartoria Cornacchia was made for me last year, and I would like to apologise for the delay in covering it. I didn’t get around to shooting the suit until the end of the Summer; events and the pop-...

Wearing a white tie with a blue shirt is something that makes perfect sense in Naples. To a certain extent, wearing sugary-pink jackets and lapis-blue tailoring makes sense too. It's just sunny so much of the time, even ...

This suit from Vicenza-based Sartoria Pasinato has turned out very smartly, with a clean fit and very sharp line. Part of this is a result of the cloth, which is a cavalry twill from Vitale Barberis Canonico (584, 440g)....

First, there must be coffee. With the Italians, always coffee. Being English I find it hard to relax and chat. I want to get straight to the fitting, rather than sit down and exchange niceties. But it is a nice social ri...

One of the less-discussed sides of Pitti Uomo is the number of tailors that set up in a hotel or appartment at the same time as the fair, in order to see customers. Although most visitors to Pitti are buyers from around...

Renato Ciardi, who sadly passed away earlier this year, was truly one of the greats of Neapolitan tailoring. Succession planning is rarely one of a bespoke tailor’s strengths, but fortunately the Ciardi family began pl...

It's hard not to feel that the future of the suit lies in more practical cloths than the fine worsteds of the past 30 years. We may move towards a situation where these cloths will be reserved for formal wear, while ev...

The Style Guide has been wonderfully received so far - at the launch events in London and New York, but also online and through personal messages. Thank you all.  There are a few things I realise I haven't emphasised so...

Edward Sexton    Before the public part of Tailoring Symposium in June, we all gathered next to the pool at the Four Seasons to have a chat about tailoring and its future, with The Rake busily making a video of the eve...

A nice little video here from our launch event in Milan for the Permanent Style 2015 book. Not much substance I’m afraid – more a promotional sting than anything else – but there are some nice shots of Simone, Fa...

Last week was the official launch of the Permanent Style book, with an event in Milan hosted by Vitale Barberis Canonico and A Caraceni. I was interviewed by the fashion editor of La Repubblica, Simone Marchetti, about m...

Last week Vitale Barberis Canonico held a party at the mill in Patrivero, near Biella, to celebrate the refurnishing and opening up of its archives. It was a great event, and the archives have created a rich resource for...

This is probably the busiest week of the year. I tend to avoid the fashion shows, but there are now some great tailoring events in the calendar – including The Rake’s party at Claridge’s on Sunday night and the Eng...

This is Giovanni Barberis Organista, tailor to the Vitale Barberis Canonico family. The two families are only distantly related (the last two names are both surnames, indicating a split at some point). More importantly, ...

This is a follow-up to my popular post on English mills and cloth merchants: how to tell them apart, how they are related and how to select between them (basically, don’t; there is little difference).   Italian mills ...

The glorious ‘VBC Rides’ cycling team, with riders from a variety of the local mills.  We’re in front of the Oropa monastery, at the end of the glorious climb from Biella that was made famous by Pantani in the 199...

This past week I’ve been in Biella, visiting the lovely people at Vitale Barberis Canonico and researching a piece on Italian mills and bunches – a follow-up to the popular post on English mills. Barberis is going th...

I’ve been travelling for the past two weeks, and while I fold my suits very assiduously (inside out, shoulder into shoulder, around a pair of trousers), they clearly suffered over the multiple journeys. I have no solut...

I was up in Yorkshire last week, based in Huddersfield and seeing a few of the mills and merchants, including Pennine, Johnsons and Dugdale.   What struck me hardest when I got back was the lack of understanding among b...