The best-dressed man I ever met was wearing a Cifonelli suit. I was in the elevator of the Plaza Athénée Hotel when a silver-haired gentleman entered wearing the most miraculous double-breasted, dove-gray flannel suit I had ever seen. He glistened - no, positively glowed - with perfection. I noticed that subtly sewn next to his buttonhole was the red thread that symbolized his membership in the Legion of Honor. But even then, I couldn't help but ask who his tailor was. He looked at me and said one word: "Cifonelli."
It is to this story that I think back, as many years later I watch my own jacket take shape under the watchful eye of Massimo Cifonelli. Massimo is soft-spoken, studious and focused - in the way he moves, in the way he acts and in the way he speaks. When you get to know him, you realize that this is an extension of the rigid search for precision and perfection that has occupied his life. He and his cousin Lorenzo, who is a brilliant tailor and also one of the best designers working in classic men's elegance today, run the three-generation-old Cifonelli workshop on Rue Marbeuf.
Massimo's parents live across the street and his father is always one of the first to visit the store every day. I realized that Massimo is one of the greatest technical geniuses in sewing. As I watch him deconstruct the back and collar of my jacket, he explains to me the fundamental technical discoveries of his grandfather Arturo Cifonelli, the founder of the company, when it came to reconciling comfort and form - or, to be more pedantic, function and form - in the tailored jacket.
"How do you keep a jacket slim and fitted, while allowing complete freedom of movement?"
"Our grandfather did a lot of research on this," he says. "How do you keep a jacket slim and tight, yet allow complete freedom of movement? What he came up with were several principles. The first was that he liked the chest of his jackets to be very clean. In fact, the Cifonelli chest is probably the lightest in bespoke tailoring - so much so that, at first, you wonder how you're going to fit your cell phone and wallet in the chest pockets and still be able to move. But fear not, you will.
"The second is that the back of the coat is several inches wider than the front," he continues. This added material must be manually slipped into the hand-sewn shoulder seam, then ironed so that it's flush with the front of the coat. "The third is that our armhole is very high and sits close to the body." Not only is the Cifonelli armhole the highest in the industry, but to be more specific, the front of the armhole is cut very close to the chest to completely isolate the deltoid in the sleeve head. As a result, the sleeve head of the Cifonelli jacket actually appears to be sloped or slightly angled inward toward the chest-a demonstration of this house's unique ability to carve in three dimensions, when most tailors operate in two. "Fourth, we create a soft, natural shoulder with very little padding and form the sleeve head using a shape we call 'The Cigarette'." It was the combination of the slightly rising sleeve with The Cigarette that motivated Svengali fashion Karl Lagerfeld to announce, "I could recognize a Cifonelli shoulder from a hundred yards away."
But it is totally incorrect to equate "The Cigarette" with the British rope headstock. The former uses layers of hand padding combined with stretching and shaping to create a sensual yet heroic domed headpiece with no underlying structure. In contrast, the rope neck head actually uses a length of rope that is placed over the shoulder from front to back to create a ridged shape. However, this string ends up occupying space that should ideally remain empty so that the shoulder can move freely. It also tends to add unwanted stiffness. As such, the strung headstock is an aesthetic conceit, while the Cifonelli cigarette is, as with all their innovations, both functional and beautiful. Why is this so? Because this unique shape allows the material added to the sleeve head to become part of the structural shape of the jacket, rather than hanging limply or in folds, as seen in the British drape or Neapolitan seam, respectively. He creates volume in the sleeve head for greater freedom of movement, but brilliantly hides that volume in what appears to be an aesthetic decision.
The final, and perhaps most important, principle of a Cifonelli jacket is hidden. As he describes it, Massimo allows himself a smile, "What people often don't realize is that all of these elements - the chest, the front of the coat, the back, the shoulder - are anchored by the collar and back of the jacket."
The thought of ordering your first Cifonelli jacket is, in some ways, daunting. In most tailors, you are shown a few examples of their house style, or perhaps you have already admired it from an acquaintance and your choice is primarily about the style and fabric of the garment. Walk into Cifonelli and Lorenzo will show you an endless array of some of the most exquisite garments in the world, each created with the house's magical union of form and comfort, but in seemingly endless varieties. Lorenzo is dynamic, buzzing with an almost electric energy and boundless intelligence. His father Adriano had cut clothes for François Mitterrand and Marcello Mastroianni. "The basic structure of our clothes is a starting point," Lorenzo says, "but at Cifonelli, we encourage you to dream, to think about who you want to be, and we'll find a way to express that in what we do for you."
"Lorenzo is dynamic, buzzing with an almost electric energy and boundless intelligence."
Among Lorenzo Cifonelli's most dazzling offerings are the "Canadian," a sport coat with chest pleats inspired by traditional Canadian hunting jackets; the "Alexander K," which is inspired by the revisionist Thomas Crown suits of house ambassador Alexander Kraft ; the "Vintage," another dress coat, this time with a rowboat chest pocket and suede patch pockets; the "Travel Jacket," which is made from Tibetan yak wool; and the "Sterling," a half-cuff sport coat with leather-trimmed flap pockets. You can revel in the extraordinary creations on display for hours, your mind wavering at the endless possibilities. But the impressive thing about Cifonelli is that every garment you receive from them is nothing short of perfect.
" I have never seen tailors drive themselves harder to achieve perfection," says Alexander Kraft, president and CEO of Sotheby's International Realty France-Monaco. "You get the impression with other tailors that they will resist too many changes. At Cifonelli, I literally asked Lorenzo to take the jacket off my back because he wasn't happy with some of the details that were too small for me to see. Lorenzo sighs, "It may be an affliction, but I am a person who is never satisfied. When I see my clothes, on some level I understand that they are good, but all I want to do is make them better.
I was there for one specific reason, and that was to get Lorenzo's iconic double-breasted blazer made for me. It's a six-button coat that closes at the bottom and follows a style I've always wanted to adopt - having seen it perpetuated by many of the world's most stylish men, including the Duke of Kent, Fred Astaire, Ralph Lauren and Luca Cordero di Montezemolo - but have never been able to wear comfortably. While I love the elongating effect of the lapel, I can't get over the way your tie and shirt front almost spill over with the low button-down stitch when you sit down. But on Lorenzo's jacket, the last row of buttons is higher, similar to a four-button tuxedo jacket, so the end result is much less sloppy. What it loses in uncluttered élan, it gains in structural finesse.
The most beautifully shaped double-breasted lapels on the planet blossom from the bottom row of buttons, showing just the perfect amount of long, curved belly before flaring out into ultra-wide, archetypally heroic, high-throated points. For the first time, I didn't have to struggle to explain my preference for a high chest pocket, because Cifonelli already places it in exactly the right spot. But look closely and you'll see that the opening of the Cifonelli double-breasted coat seems to elegantly hug the curve of the male chest, rather than falling over it in the manner of a kimono or robe, as smaller double-breasted coats do. .
Lift up the lapel of the Lorenzo Cifonelli coat and you'll understand why. The lapel is not actually part of the front of the coat but a second piece of fabric that is perfectly joined along a seam that follows the curve of the male chest. "If you want to create a double-breasted coat with an opening that perfectly follows the contours of the chest, you have to do it," Lorenzo explains. "But very few tailors would be willing or have the ability to do that."
"I always have to start from scratch and build the canvas with the person I dressed."
Surprisingly, within days of the initial fitting, Lorenzo had already created a fitting canvas from scratch for me. "Some other tailors will use a pre-made block on you to help them visualize," he explains, "but for me, I always have to start from scratch and build the canvas with the person I fitted [while it's] fresh in my mind . "Although he has one of the largest in-house tailoring teams in the world, Lorenzo oversees every step of Cifonelli's unique process, which includes hand-worked chests, hand-sewn seams and finishes, and exquisite Milanese buttonholes."
Lorenzo Cifonelli's double-breasted coat is shorter than most, and is high-waisted and fitted before flaring out into a beautiful skirt. The two blazers that resulted from my visit - one in bird blue wool and the second in a blue silk and linen blend - are among the most complimented garments I've ever worn.
And whenever I get a positive remark, I remember that night in the elevator at the Plaza Athénée when I ran into this particularly elegant older gentleman. After he divulged the name of his tailor, I paused for a moment before continuing, "Sir, I hope I didn't offend you, as there is a school of thought that you should only notice the man and never the clothes." He chuckled before replying, "It's a school of thought perpetuated by people with poor clothing... Cifonelli, young man, go to Cifonelli.
