Note: Suit 101 is a weekly series that discusses on the finer side of menswear. Last week, we talked about Vitale Barberis Canonico, one of the oldest and largest mills in Italy. But the mill is one part of the suit game. Tailoring is, in my opinion, what makes or breaks a suit. Thus, a post must be dedicated to the science and art of tailoring – in edible chunks of course. 1. Anatomy of a suit Like body parts, there are parts to a suit. Parts of a suit: I shall not go on a lengthy tirade on each parts of the suit but the image above is self-explanatory. If…
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Mario Dice and his “vintage of the future”
Mario Dice is a young fashion designer who, after many collaborations with famous fashion houses such as Trussardi, Krizia and Gattinoni, in 2007 founded his own brand with both men and women’s collections. “If I had to describe my collections with three adjectives, I would say: elegant, ductile and saleable” His interesting career began when he was only 15 when he started working for Clavin Klein in New York. Then he continued more and more to improve his skills finding every day something new, innovative and fascinating for his prêt-à-porter items. After years of experiences, now Mario Dice is ready to show to his public what he really intends as fashion…
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(Insert luxury brand here) Made in Sweatshops
Gucci made it to the headlines again — and this time, for the wrong reason. A recent report claimed that Chinese employees for Libero Mondo — one of Gucci’s subcontractors in Italy — worked 14 hours a day on handbags, instead of the contracted 4 hours. Worse, Libero Mondo’s Arnoldo Guidotti proclaimed that Gucci is fully aware of the exploitation, and Gucci buys those bags from Libero Mondo for 24 euros. In store, a Gucci bag retails for approximately 1000 euros. Kering (once Pinault Printempts Redoute or PPR), Gucci’s parent company, responded that they would include additional measures to ensure that incidents like these would never repeat again. Yet, in 2002, Brylane — a US based clothing supplier for Kering —…
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Luxury archives: past or future?
Recently, numerous fashion luxury brands have decided to dive into the past. Thanks to their archives, they manage to amaze their customers with historical prints used for past collections. Clothes and accessories are the symbols of a continuing evolution of these brands for which innovation and history go at the same speed. Modernised collections become every time a great achievement for brands that, believing more and more in the uniqueness of their details, show how these ones represent the key of their success since years. In the past, these peculiar prints were appositely designed for royal people but even now they preserve the charm of the Made in Italy excellence.…
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Fashion and Finance: the double Fs of luxury
In which way does the financial world and the luxury one, apparently far apart, actually continue to go at the same speed? In the current age, it’s important to underline how the international finance is more and more present in the fashion industry through the so-called M&A, mergers and acquisitions operations in order to help different fashion enterprises in developing and improving their own financial and management growth. For this reason, financial advisory and asset management firms play a significant role in forming a global network of relationships between international leaders. Important shifts are happening from West to East so that emerging markets are now the focus of economic transformations the…
