Mr Hugo Jacomet explains the enduring appeal of Italian sartorial flair and delves into what spezzatura actually is.

Sprezzatura, that frustratingly undefinable nonchalance of style unique to Italians, is something us envying non-Italians crave to master, but all too often fail to understand. Thankfully, Mr Hugo Jacomet has taken on the task for himself, and has written somewhat of a treatise on exactly what (and who) has made Italian style so special. “Contrary to the sober, low-key and precise British style, and contrary to the charismatic, sophisticated and structured French style, there is not a single Italian style, but several,” he explains in The Italian Gentleman, a great slab of a book that digs into Italy’s soigné soul and charts the ineffable maestros who have made it so.

Mr Jacomet spent three years “roam[ing] relentlessly around the country in search of the best artisans, famed and unknown, easy to find and obscure”. His findings comprise a comprehensive, substantial, and deliciously stylish record of the people, concepts, and history that have made what we know today as Italian style. “Style bible” is an overused and trite epithet, but The Italian Gentleman might just be one. Writing in the book’s introduction, Mr Jacomet describes his tome as a “journey through the most opulent showrooms as well as the most bare-boned workshops, the ritziest palaces and the dirtiest basements, the most surgically organised factories and the living rooms of many old tailors, who learned their trade as early as the 1940s and still make exquisite clothes right there at home.”

Due consideration is given to the vaunted tailoring greats such as Ermenegildo Zegna, Massimo Piombo, and A. Caraceni, but the book leaves alone the more famous Italian fashion megabrands in favour of shining a light on the grassroots makers who have quietly toiled in their workshops for multiple generations (13 in the case of the famous Vitale Barberis Canonico fabric mill, which was established in 1663). Split cleanly into six sections, The Italian Gentleman celebrates bespoke tailors, shoemakers, fabric merchants, shirtmakers, sartorial brands, and those who make “Gentleman’s requisites” (ties and umbrellas). As well as descriptions of the economic and cultural histories of the tailoring business, its pages are filled with colourful photographs of fabric mills, tailoring workshops, and family portraits (as well as a number of impossibly well-dressed Italian gentlemen).

Our favourite moments in the book, though, are the stories told by the Italians themselves. In the profile on Neapolitan tailors E. Marinella, owner Mr Maurizio Marinella recalls an old family anecdote with an unrestrained smile: “A letter arrived at our house, written by an American mogul – a certain Donald Trump. My father, Luigi Marinella, opened it, wondering who this American man could be, and he was surprised to read that Mr Trump was offering a free store location in the Trump Tower in New York City. My father, at the time, wasn’t keen to sell our ties and shirts outside Naples, and politely declined the offer.”

The Italian Gentleman: The Master Tailors of Italian Men’s Fashion (Thames & Hudson) by Mr Hugo Jacomet is out 26 October

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