Men’s Fashionc Changes. From the Bourgeois Suit to the Innovations of the Italian Tailors and the Birth of Made in Italy

Today Italian men’s fashion is known and appreciated worldwide. It represents an important segment of the entire Italian fashion system. But it was not always like this. Until the first decade of the twentieth century, in fact, an Italian male style did not exist and Italian tailoring production reused the diktat that seasonally came from London, which since the end of the eighteenth century became the undisputed capital of men’s fashion. However, it was thanks to the Italian tailors who, from the twentieth century, it is affirmed the idea of tailoring as scientific and design discipline, which would become a central point for the renewal of men's fashion. The Italian tailors made decisive contributions to the cut and design of the men's gown, starting with the most important garment: the jacket, which became less rigid than the English one. These were the years when the first brands of Italian men's fashion began to emerge, appreciated all over the world, such as that of Domenico Caraceni, who opened an atelier in Rome in 1926. A new season for the Italian men's tailoring was inaugurated which, from the second half of the 1940s, would definitively undermined the English leadership. Another important contribution from Italian tailors was in anthropometric measurements. The Milanese tailor Bruno Piergiovanni patented a small and simple machine used to take exact measures. The other measuring system called Plastes was patented in 1940 by the Roman tailor Luigi Branchini. It was a metallic cage which enclosed the body, registering any “disharmonies” of proportion and determining a corresponding change of projections and ratios, which allowed the tailor to create a harmony in the form of the outfit. These innovations in sartorial measurements, were resumed and improved in the post-war period, when the male dress, much earlier than it was in the female, also knew the success of the ready to wear dress in Italy. The Italian tailors tried to create an alternative style to the English, in contrast to the muted tones of English tailoring, through the use of colour which did not go beyond the limit of good taste, but bestowed on male clothing a distinctly Italian look because inspired by the sun and Bel Paese colours.