Gabriele, Bernardo, Lucia and Eleonora. Four young people between the ages of twenty and thirty meet in the class of a course organised by the Accademia dei Sartori. On the day of graduation, they marched into a solicitor’s office to found Habitus, their very own tailor’s workshop. The name was chosen because “elegance should be a habit,” explains Bernardo, one of the youngest components of the team who, after finishing high school, undecided about whether to study law or not, settled upon the tailoring trade. The four young craftspeople all hail from different worlds: Lucia was a designer in the women’s fashion field, while Eleonora taught Italian in middle school. Even for Gabriele, the tailoring trade was not on the cards; indeed, he was at university studying communication. “The idea of opening an atelier together was suggested to us by our teacher,” says Gabriele. “He was the one who first thought that we’d make a great team.”
A Habitus jacket is a fascinating journey through tailoring schools, which starts off in Naples and ends up in Seoul, stopping off in Florence. From Naples, for example, he borrowed the lightweight insides, free from padding. Florence inspired, on the other hand, is the construction of the front with a single dart, curved and oblique – which they call cugno (a play on the Italian word for “wedge”), and which ends 1 cm before the top half of the pocket, leaving the bottom of the jacket with a cleancut finish. From South-East Asia, finally, they have mutated an accentuated sloping cran (in perfect Italian 50s style), which is supported by a particularly high collar. A notably high underarm gives roominess to the armhole, as is de rigueur for in any self-respecting tailors; the teardrop buttonhole is relatively small at 1.7cm, while the appliqued chest pocket is distinctly high and wide. A point in favour of this atelier: they produce everything in-house, nothing whatsoever is sent to third parties to be crafted.
I commissioned them to make me an Original Solaro of Smith Woollens, 355 gr/mt, in twill weave. After few weeks we also conducted the first fitting (see photo below) and I must say I am pleased with the result so far: the plum of both jacket and trousers were very good in my opinion. I can’t wait to see the end result, and it enthuses me to see some young blood being pumped into a stolid and rather closed trade like Italian tailoring. In my humble opinion, these youngsters signal a positive approach, in that they are emblematic of the failure of the traditional professionsm, and that society is finally giving its stamp of approval to the manual trades. Their foresight is paying off, and how! Their suits have a starting price of €2.500.
Bespoke hugs,
Fabio
