Nicky Milano 1920: a visit to the Milanese workshop

It was Gabriele D’Annunzio’s favourite tie; in 1927, Italy’s aesthete wrote a letter to Mr Nicky to thank him for five handkerchiefs that evoked “memories of an elegant and magnificent life”. The tie-maker’s history stretches back to the 1920s, thanks to the entrepreneurial savvy of its founder, Nicky, who in a few short years turned the business into a major success story. This is witnessed by the Milan building belonging to Nicky – the very first in the 1930s to have a rooftop swimming pool, which was featured in the magazine Domus – as well as the tie knot of the same name (simiar to the Pratt), invented in 1952 by Leopoldo Curami, the brother-in-law of the founder and owner of the neckwear temple at the time.

Today the laboratory is situated in Via Pietrasanta in Milan, and it is in that spot that the magic takes place, creating in-house products as well as those for other major tie brands. Reams of silk cut with shears and iron gloves, card templates and embroiderers bent over their work in a room still adorned with original furniture from the 1920s. The ownership may have changed hands, but it has lost none of the artisan spirit which envelops this small Milanese manufacturer with charm. “Milanese”, like the Nicky tie, which differs from the Neapolitan one, famous the world over. “Our tie is distinguished by the widespread use of muted shades, rather than colours that are too striking,” explains the stylish Alberto Benigni, head of the Nicky collection and expert in Italian and English silk. Apart from the colours, another trait of the Nicky tie is that a seven-fold version is unlikely to be found, unless specifically requested by a client. And a black thread finds a home in the designs of the collection, lending a three-dimensional quality to the accessory which, however, never deviates from tasteful simplicity, a British-style understatement that eschews any excess in both colour and shape.

“From this year, we are bringing the “doppia catena” back into the collection, a traditional weave of the Fermo Fossati silk makers, which allows for well-defined patterns, its only downside being that it limits the number of colours in any pattern to two,” explains Benigni, as he shows me their coming summer collection. The soon to be launched online collection will include ties made of drapery fabrics, a recurring theme will be prints, but also cottons and gauzes, the latter solely made of fabrics from Fossati or Bianchi, the renowned silk manufacturers used for ecclesiastic clothing. The sober use of colours is exalted by elegant satin Jacquards (smooth weave), twill (horizontal) or reps (oblique) in pale shades, 8cm wide and with hand-rolled edge, in the unlined ties, slightly thicker than usual (see photo). The colour remains a fundamental element in the choice of typically Nicky fabrics, as confirmed by the presence in the collection of patterns created with the much-appreciated traditional technique of stampa a tavolo. The difference between this technique and today’s Inkjet methods? Easy peasy: when the tie is unlined, the print will also be visible on the back of the fabric.