THE ART OF CUTTING

The capital of the master cutters and “clothiers”, of the first designers, as always. The legendary names of the master architects of style come to mind. In the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, two affirmed exponents of the Neapolitan school, Raffaele Sardonelli and Filippo de Nicola, dressed the crowned heads of half of Europe, laying the foundations for the emergence of Neapolitan style.
It’s the Naples that blends English, French and Austrian culture with that of the ancient kingdoms and republics that came to make up Italy. De Nicola’s son, Adolfo, who studied under Antonio Caggiula (another icon, author of the famous work, “L’Arte del taglio”, published in 1887), became the most sought-after tailor in fin-de-siècle Europe after a sojourn in London.
Besides Antonio Caggiula, other great Neapolitan tailors of the first decades of the twentieth century included Salvatore Morziello, Giuseppe Tallarico and Peppino Miniello, the first to have the idea of extending the “pinces” (tuck) of a jacket along its entire front, one of the distinctive elements of Neapolitan style.