Cesare Attolini

The Attolini name carries a specific historical claim: in the 1930s, Vincenzo Attolini, working in Naples, deconstructed the stiff English jacket — removing padding and structure to create the soft, unlined Neapolitan style whose natural shoulder and fluid drape now define an entire school of tailoring. His descendants formalized the family house under the Cesare Attolini name, and it remains family-run, producing jackets that pass through extraordinary quantities of handwork in its Neapolitan workshops. Nothing about the operation is scaled for volume; the house makes limited numbers and dresses clients who want the original article rather than the style's many imitations. The jackets are the point — spalla camicia shoulders, hand-sewn throughout — with trousers, shirts, and outerwear in support. For students of tailoring, this is a pilgrimage: the source of the softest silhouette in menswear.

Try a jacket one size from your usual — the unstructured cut fits closer to the body than padded tailoring, and the house's proportions surprise first-time wearers.