A Digital Talk Series

CHAPTER 3

Mr. Luca Rubinacci – The Harbinger For Neapolitan Tailoring

The third edition of Why Fashion Matters transcends continents to discover the cradle of bespoke menswear – the city of Naples in the southern part of Italy. This time the discussion explored the resplendent heritage of 90 years of the family owned luxury empire – Rubinacci with Mr Luca Rubinacci – the most quintessentially dapper instagrammer and street style menswear icon.

Synonymous with fluid silhouette of a suit dabbled with a gamut of colours, heritage fabrics from the oldest fabric mill Vitale Barbaris Canonico, Rubinacci defines the elegance of a gentleman whose attire does not need to stand out on a street but remarkably blends in harmoniously with the way of life – a true work of an arisan – the embodiment of Sartoria Italiana.

The crore topic of discussion was the essence of bespoke garments. Being the third generation of the Rubinacci lineage, Luka talks about how his clientele expanded to the whole world as compared to his father who catered primarily to italy. For this reason he states that understanding the necessities of clients around the world becomes paramount. 

He goes on to give examples of his clients in Kazakhstan and Russia, living in much tougher weather conditions. For them the warmth in clothing becomes absolutely necessary but coming to Rubinacci ensures a Neapolitan construction, which is more lighter on shoulder and in turn more comfortable. 

He gives the analogy of how, upon entering a house the first thing a man does is remove his jacket but if he is wearing a sweater or pullover, he doesn’t take that off. Physiologically the pullover is much more comfortable so he doesn’t take that off meanwhile the jacket doesn’t feel like a second skin. The real essence of bespoke comes in by making a bespoke jacket to fit like the sweater where the client doesn’t feel heavy in turn making the experience of wearing it more pleasurable.

The discussion ended with Mr Rubinacci urging the upcoming generations to get a good sense of the rules of anything they work on, because a person who actually knows the rules can break them creating something worthwhile in the process.