Neapolitan tailors were used to fine lightweight fabrics, such as silk, linen, muslin, and thin worsted. While Armani, 30 years later, used the latest technology and expanded tailoring to achieve a comfortable effect, the Neapolitan tailors worked hard on the structure of the fashion, applying special techniques, stitch by stitch, to make the coat faster, more flexible and more breathable. In the end, the North got the same results with high tech as the South with low tech. In Italy, the garment factories of the north display clean, gleaming machines, while the workshops of the south are filled with men and women sewing quietly on their laps around tables. The mode of production around which artisans work like this is called "island production".
Today's Italian fashion can only be described as avant-garde. Italians don't like to follow trends, they prefer to lead them. Simple fashions made from lightweight fabrics seem closer to the definition of "bella figuar" - Italian tailors are the masters of linen, silk and cotton. In the north, the climate is cooler and clothing is more conservative. The business suit is usually a navy blue suit, a dark brown silk tie (was it the Milanese who discovered the perfect match between blue and brown?), a white shirt, and a pair of brown shoes. Italians don't wear black shoes because they think black is not only boring but only suitable for funerals.
In the south, Neapolitans have developed a penchant for detail. For example, they love pockets. One type of "brandy glass" pocket -- rounded at the bottom and wider than the opening -- is suitable for suits and blazers. The shoulder-named "boat pocket" is a pocket cut out of the chest, looking like a boat, hence the name.
The Neapolitan rotator cuff is not smooth, but has wrinkles, because Neapolitan tailors like to tuck the larger sleeve hill into the smaller shoulder armhole. To achieve this effect, they used a technique called "sleeve hanging" - leaving out the shoulder pads and allowing the sleeve hill and shoulder fabric to overlap and sew together, which makes the coat lighter and more flexible, and the coat front flap usually extends from the chest to the hem. They believe this gives them greater control over the shape of the section below the side pocket (what tailors call the "hem").
Today, as in previous eras, fashion becomes more colorful the further south you go in Italy. It's probably because the southern climate is warmer and more sunny. It's also about a more relaxed lifestyle. Life in the south, always accompanied by lemon and orange trees, the dazzling blue Mediterranean Sea, red brick roofs and the constant roar of small motorcycles. Comfort Color and structure are everything. In the last century, the development of menswear is also along this direction, and the future will not necessarily change.
Just as the British are used to country clothes for the city, the Italians like to mix fun and serious clothes together. A serious suit with a patterned shirt and a bright tie, a pair of bright socks looming under dark trousers, or a lively pocket towel tucked into a formal coat pocket. It is also obvious that Italians hate black shoes and prefer brown ones. As an Italian friend of mine once explained, black is simply black, while brown comes in countless categories, from the lightest cream or biscuit to taupe, light tan, russet, maroon, chocolate, coffee and black brown.
"Brown is a lot more interesting than black, don't you think," he said thoughtfully. I had to agree at the time, but since then all black clothes have become boring to me.
