In a previous post I briefly explored the history of Florentine tailoring. The Milan menswear catwalks finished on Tuesday evening though, and, not having had enough time yesterday, I think I will pay homage to Milanese tailoring today.
There aren't too many books about the history of Italian tailoring schools or about the history of the different tailoring "styles" and that’s a shame. Indeed, different tailors established in their regions or in the towns where they worked very different styles.
The Milanese tailoring style was for example the most relevant one in Italy. Based on a precise technique and on sober lines, this was the first style that became popular in the country and it was also fundamental in the development of modern menswear.
In the early 1800s Milan was flourishing: trading with other cities or countries had developed; wages had increased and the city and its population were changing really fast.
There were new shops, cafes and theatres and, though universities were closed, there were academies and institutions where people gathered to talk and organise debates. Piazza del Duomo was the pulsating heart of the city, the place from which all streets started and where people met.
On the North side of the square there was a row of low houses under which there was an arcade with famous cafes and shops selling luxury goods. Among them there was also the "Negozio di panni con sartoria" (Fabric and tailoring shop) that belonged to Pietro Prandoni, a Milanese entrepreneur who had started importing fabrics made in England. The shop had become quite famous and it was also mentioned in an early tourist guide published in 1828. Yet while his fame as an entrepreneur spread, almost nothing was known about his tailoring skills. To understand why this had happened we must go back in time: when the Austrians suppressed the famous Università dei Sarti (Tailors' University) in 1774, Milan-based tailors quickly fell into mediocrity.
At the end of the 1700s local tailors languished: young men who wanted to pursue this profession didn't have a proper school where they could study and could learn the ropes from random third-rate shops scattered around Milan. When France was put back in charge of the Po River valley after Napoleon crushed the Austrians at Marengo, not far from Milan, the conditions of Milanese tailors didn’t change: local tailors were considered so mediocre that, in 1779, France deemed them only worthy of sewing the uniforms for the French army.
It took decades for this precious form of craftsmanship to find its new life: around 1850 tailors tried to design clothes for everyday men and not suits that looked like "costumes", as it happened in the 1700s. Then Giuliano Prandoni, son of Pietro, arrived on the scene.
Giuliano grew up in his father's shop where, among the rolls of fabric, artists, tailors and textile experts met and passionately chatted about clothes and style. Prandoni launched the “Milanese style” and, though with the necessary changes, the main principles of this tailor’s style are still followed in today's designs.
The basic principle of this style was very simple: menswear had to be designed on the body of a real man, eliminating impractical folds, bizarre tails and useless decorations, and opting for a sober style that emphasised the shoulders while perfectly balancing the rest of the figure.
To create this new style Prandoni studied human anatomy and changed the cutting patterns focusing on the body and its movements. He highlighted the waistline and the hips and placed the armhole in a higher position to allow men to move freely and comfortably.
Prandoni’s intuitions made him famous: soon the shop relocated to Contrada Santa Margherita and famous men - from King Vittorio Emanuele II to ministers, aristocrats, artists and entrepreneurs - went to visit the shop and ordered the brand new suits in “Milanese style”.
After Prandoni died one of his students, Giovan Battista Rosti continued his work in the same shop. Under Rosti the shop prospered producing an astonishing number of suits - 5,000 - every year.
Many of the tailors who became famous between the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the century were Prandoni's students. Among the most famous tailors of this period of time there were brothers Giuseppe and Gerolamo Martinenghi, brothers Alessandro and Enrico Castellini and Angelo Rossetti.
Between 1920 and 1940, a new generation of tailors arrived on the scene, heralded by talents such as Segramora, Carlo Magni, Treccani and Giuseppe Colombo. The latter was born in Borgo Ticino from a peasant family. Permanently disabled by an accident he had as a young boy, he started working for a tailor based in the village where he was born before moving to Milan.
Colombo was a self-taught tailor with a very personal method: he often needed countless fittings to do one suit and used them to slowly and carefully “build up” his suit as if it were a work of art (apparently he once put through 74 fittings a Cremona-based lawyer who had ordered a suit from him...) and was famous for taking 29 different measurements for making a suit. Uneducated but very clever and skilled, Colombo mainly used his instincts in his work.
Cesare Tosi became also popular: an admirer of Giuliano Prandoni's art, Tosi had a perfect cut and updated the Milanese style turning it into the elegant "Tosi style". Painter Mario Sironi, who designed the logo for Tosi's tailoring house, dubbed him the "architetto umano" (the architect of the human body) to highlight the fact that Tosi was so precise in his cut that he almost created buildings in which a man's body could live.
In the 50s many tailors moved from the Southern regions such as Calabria, Puglia and Sicily and as they arrived in Milan they influenced the local style. The numbers of tailors and tailoring shops increased: in the early 60s there were at least 2,000 tailoring houses in Milan, but only 100 produced suits in the genuine Milanese style. The best tailoring houses were Prandoni, Giovanni Cattaneo, Arnaldo Castellini, Giovanni Belloli, Celeste Carrara and Giorcelli.
Famous for having designed entire wardrobes for Giacomo Puccini, Arturo Toscanini, Guglielmo Marconi and Gabriele D'Annunzio, the Prandoni tailoring house remained the most important one until it closed down in the early 60s.
Like Giovanni Cattaneo and Arnaldo Castellini, Giovanni Belloli was a firm supporter of the Milanese style and cautiously balanced new trends with the more classic designs, while Carrara preserved the principles of the Milanese style but applied to his suits a softer and lighter design. 
Giorcelli opened instead his tailoring house at the end of the 50s, after working for around 30 years at Prandoni’s and became one of the most famous Milanese tailors.
Giorcelli won an important battle in his life: he managed to combine the original Milanese style with new trends and with the needs of modern men and while keeping on focusing on the importance of the shoulders and perfectly balancing every part of a suit, Giorcelli added a touch of functionality to the Milanese style.
Milan produced also tailors who completely revolutionised the Milanese style such as Camozzi and Mario Donini, who opted for softer and more comfortable lines. But the list of Milan-based tailors could go on, including Angelo Merlini and Tosi's admirers Gino Lizzola and Giuseppe Colavito.
The immensely beautiful and severe Milanese style continued to be popular throughout the decades, but as Milan transformed into a fashion capital, many tailoring houses closed down. A very final mention goes to the Caraceni family who updated the Milanese style in more recent years while managing to stay open. But I will write about their work in a future post about the Abruzzese tailoring school.
There might be a lot of designers and very few tailors nowadays in Milan, but every time I see a well-cut suit à la Armani, I can't stop thinking about the Milanese tailoring traditions and the early work of great tailors such as Giuliano Prandoni.
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