Kiton (Q3762)
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Italian men's luxury fashion designer
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Kiton |
Italian men's luxury fashion designer |
Statements
The pandemic has boosted sales and revenues of fashion companies rather consistently, which seems counterintuitive. “We’ve grown 32%,” said Kiton’s CEO Antonio De Matteis at the label’s presentation. “People have a desire for dressing well, they want to enjoy life, they want to go on. We’ve never stopped, and people respond to resilience.” But beyond showing the courage to be on the front line keeping the engine running, the offer has to be of-the-moment and compelling. “Surely people are ready to spend the money they haven’t spent in quarantine, but they do it only if the pieces have longevity and elegance,” said De Matteis, whose label has no shortage of those qualities.Update and innovate is the mot d’ordre of menswear brands rooted in formalwear; in order to stay afloat at a time when rules of style are subverted and fluid, they have to broaden their audience, reaching out to new demographics without losing core customers. It’s like walking on a rope suspended on churning waters, an exercise which requires stamina and guts, and a bit of folly. “We’ve adjusted to the situation embracing change, but always from our perspective,” said De Matteis.To that end, leisurewear was injected with polish, while formality was tinged with a relaxed, supple attitude. The collection was given a younger feel with a play on textures and subtle chromatic twists: coats in precious eight-threads cashmere were cut slightly oversize with an ’80s feel; travel suits had blazers as light as shirts and made in soft-knitted textures for extra comfort, while puffers were lightweight yet luxurious, often layered under soft-tailored cashmere carcoats.Underlining the focus on appealing to younger customers, in 2018 De Matteis’ twin sons, Mariano and Walter, launched their line KNT, which represents Kiton’s cosmopolitan and dynamic identity. This season they experimented with innovative technologies, presenting a new fabrication called “under glass.” Smooth and shiny, it recalls the techno satin used in the ’90s, and it was made into a luxurious, cool series of padded bombers and blousons.
15 January 2022
Kiton’s new store opposite Prada’s on Via Sant’Andrea opened for the first time only this morning: On a whistle-stop tour through it, house scion Maria Giovanna Paone presented a comprehensive wardrobe for spring. The most striking items included a finger-kissingly soft overshirt in cashmere hung against some sumptuous cashmere-cotton corduroy pants, a combination that was simultaneously understated and lavishly rich.As you would expect, there was enough soft-shouldered suiting to keep a retinue of porters employed at check-in. A silk cady sweatshirt with a woven suede body was an evident source of delight, both for the wearer and the wearer’s dry cleaner. More robust was a section of terracotta-hued suiting in Irish linen, and more fluid was a series of billowing silk foulard dresses—really just two huge squares of lavishly printed fabric strapped artfully around a body-accommodating space—that was vacation aperitivo catnip. A pure silk trench, meanwhile, was outerwear for those who rarely encounter rainfall but enjoy the drama of gunflap, volume, and swoosh.Upstairs were two especially beguiling displays; the first a tailored jacket in blue and white bouclé teamed with a same-fabric pair of jeans-style, five-pocket pants. And tucked away at the end of the room was a fantastic little capsule of piped linen robes, cashmere eye masks, and spa slippers.
24 September 2021
“Let’s hope that this display isn’t just an allegory but becomes the reality of our future,” said Kiton CEO Antonio De Matteis. He was pointing to a showroom space that replicated the topiary perfection typical of Italian Renaissance gardens. “A new Renaissance is just what we’re hoping for,” he added.De Matteis believes that consumers are in post-pandemic mode, ready for a return of bel vestire and what he called “the elegance of simple things.” In the Kiton universe, simple means the finest of the finest fabrications, all produced in-house (Kiton owns the historic wool mill Carlo Barbera) and cut into the luxurious, impeccably tailored suits that are the Neapolitan brand’s signature. This season the emphasis was on the softly textured. Silk bourettes, washed silks, cashmere jerseys, Irish linens, and solaro (a blend of silk, cashmere, and linen) all felt supple and malleable, as if they were knitted. “Comfort is here to stay,” said De Matteis. “We’re trying to give our formal offer the same feel of ease of more sporty options.”Light knitwear was proposed in many iterations, the most interesting being hand painted with soft tie-dye effects. Tracksuits in double-stretch cashmere were designed for the intercontinental travel that will soon resume. Neapolitans are born optimists and love to celebrate, so De Matteis is also convinced that weddings, christenings, and dinner parties will be returning, so there were smokings and tuxedos in dark blue washed silks. Their chic ease makes you long for a world where a modern version of formal elegance is again a universal language — and not just a Neapolitan turn of phrase.The De Matteis twins Walter and Mariano share the same elegant attitude in their younger casualwear line KNT. Blazers are slim-fitted and hybridized with bombers featuring bi-color intarsia-ed hoodies. Trousers are formal, but elasticated waists and drawstring details make them versatile. “We want to open new tailoring frontiers,” one of the brothers said. “Updating hundred of years old rules but keeping them intact. We want to preserve the tradition of Made in Italy craftsmanship.” Passed down for generations, Neapolitan optimism is truly unwavering.
21 June 2021
This Kiton womenswear collection suggested progression at a house whose fabrication is impeccable but whose image of itself has long failed to do that justice. As well as improved styling, the collection also displayed broader range. Case in point was Look 24’s elevated cashmere jersey two-piece, which suggested that even if sweatpants are forever, forever might not be such a purgatory after all.Another hint of expansion was Look 14’s set of cardigan/jacket/shacket loungecoats—call them what you will, wear them as you will—teamed with pants in what Maria Giovanna Paone said was “millionaire’s cashmere.” A side-vented white and green paneled shirt in scrumptious 14 micron wool teamed with a silk satin shirt and handsome wide jeans was another go-er.Absolutely as per usual, this collection was overflowing with lustrous double-faced outerwear, sometimes reversible, and pieces in beautifully tailored traditionally patterned fabrics and leathers. And yet along with a cute ski-capsule not in the look book, it was the more democratically designed pieces—even if they were cut in millionaire’s cashmere—that were most interesting at Kiton today. Spring 2019 proved to be a false dawn, but all the gazillionaires hankering for a fresh source of contemporary, unpretentious and realistic daily pieces—a sort of Uniqlo for the 1 per cent—will be hoping that fall 2021 isn’t. Whether through design, styling or casting, this was a Kiton collection that reflected its wider world much more accurately, and hence more attractively, than of late.
25 February 2021
Upstairs in the Kiton palazzo, past the beautiful vintage style chrome-finish bicycle that has sat for several seasons in the hallway apparently never ridden, awaited a vast array of impeccably made menswear waiting to be worn. It was laid out under a sign that declared “day by day, step by step, door to door, we never stop,” but CEO Antonio de Matteis ruefully conceded that the house’s usual rhythm of trunk shows has pretty much ground to a halt, for obvious reasons. “But we are optimistic because after a year-and-a-half of sitting on the sofa we think the world is coming back,” he added. “But maybe it is coming back in a different way, and this thinking is what has stimulated the collection.”Kiton has long presented a broad spectrum of luxury casual wear and highly functional sportswear alongside the industrially perfected deconstructed Neapolitan tailoring for which it is famed. This season, however, the blending of and blurring between those categories felt less dutiful aside and more urgent recognition that the parameters of dressing are rapidly changing.For Kiton, that's not necessarily bad news: the soft-shouldered southern style of Italian tailoring of which it is a specialist is better suited to the flexible future than many other varieties of the form, and here the house’s merchandisers mixed its meltingly soft jackets in cashmere and vicuna with hooded floral shirts, fur-lined half-zips, camouflage hoodies—pretty much everything except a tie. The emphasis on deformalisation was underlined by an all-vicuna rail—spun by Kiton’s own Barbera mill—that presented this noblest (and softest) of yarns on forms once considered ignoble, including a puffer gilet and even a pair of slides. On another rail a beautiful cable-knit blanket in pearl gray was partnered with a matching three-quarter length cardigan to offer effortless co-ordination for those disinclined to leave the sofa quite yet. The formality of traditional leather shoe styles was undercut by house-branding red stitching at the welt, while sneaker uppers spun in cashmere and wool were given a sartorial significance via houndstooth patterning.Downstairs Antonio’s twin sons Mariano and Walter were showing their KNT line, which has expanded dramatically in the last few years from sportswear-inflected suiting to a much broader line of Kiton contemporaneity. The camo cashmere overshirts were especially fine.
Once those trunk shows start picking up again, Kiton will have plenty of promisingly progressive pieces with which to fill them.
16 January 2021
As Maria Giovanna Paone noted, COVID-19 screening in her home city of Naples is as stringent as everywhere in Italy. “In fact two of the big cafes have closed because some of the staff tested positive. But we are very lucky in the factory; we have had no cases, just two or three staff members have had to stay at home after the holidays after their children tested positive.” That’s good news for Kiton’s 450 Naples-based tailors and artisans, but the beautiful clothes they supply are redundant without demand, and the broader economic picture is concerning this business as much as any.Still, Kiton cracks on. This much extended look book contained many beautiful pieces, although as in past seasons the crushingly conventional style in which they were shot—it looks like a Land’s End catalogue—did little to communicate that. On the ground a nuttily toned suit in a mix of bamboo, linen, and silk gleamed softly in the sunlight shining through from Via Fiori Chiari, but wilted wanly in the image. Double-faced cashmere silk linen jackets termed “iconic” by the brand were indeed exquisite in the hand but, again, in the images just looked bland. Shirt dresses in brushstroke printed silk satin should have jumped off the page, but instead looked in need of urgent restoration. And so it went on. Kiton consistently makes such beautiful garments that it becomes increasingly frustrating to see them so poorly presented every season.
30 September 2020
As Maria Giovanna Paone noted, COVID-19 screening in her home city of Naples is as stringent as everywhere in Italy. “In fact two of the big cafes have closed because some of the staff tested positive. But we are very lucky in the factory; we have had no cases, just two or three staff members have had to stay at home after the holidays after their children tested positive.” That’s good news for Kiton’s 450 Naples-based tailors and artisans, but the beautiful clothes they supply are redundant without demand, and the broader economic picture is concerning this business as much as any.Still, Kiton cracks on. This much extended lookbook contained many beautiful pieces, although as in past seasons the crushingly conventional style in which they were shot—it looks like a Land’s End catalogue—did little to communicate that. On the ground a nuttily toned suit in a mix of bamboo, linen, and silk gleamed softly in the sunlight shining through from Via Fiori Chiari, but wilted wanly in the image. Double-faced cashmere silk linen jackets termed “iconic” by the brand were indeed exquisite in the hand but, again, in the images just looked bland. Shirt dresses in brushstroke printed silk satin should have jumped off the page, but instead looked in need of urgent restoration. And so it went on. Kiton consistently makes such beautiful garments that it becomes increasingly frustrating to see them so poorly presented every season.
1 October 2020
The thread that runs through Kiton is red. Since its late 1960s founding by Ciro Paone, this Neapolitan tailoring house has marked its soft-shouldered confections with the slightest of labels, thefilo rossoscarlet stitch applied by its 500 tailors. At this refreshingly dynamic (relatively) presentation, Ciro’s daughter Maria Giovanna brought up a group of those tailors to demonstrate some of the processes behind the construction of one of her family firm’s famous red-etched jackets to a guest list of around 400.That meant that not all the looks you see here were in situ there, which in the case of the wide-whale corduroy, double-breasted jacket worn with delicately tapered and cuffed pants, was the source of some regret. What remained, however, was well worth rustling on the rail. At the front of the ground-floor room were a coat and jacket in vicuna, which to the touch felt like a gentle gust of wind. Fox- or chinchilla-collared cabana coats, and coats and shift dresses in two types of netted metal-strafed boucle produced by a Scottish firm near Elgin were both strikingly mid-century but also imaginable in upscale milieus of today. Suits of cashmere, robe coats, skirts, and jackets in a soft blue or green were irreproachable. A black silk cady tux featured a lapel of gleaming black pins and five layers of organza cut to frame the neck with maximum mysterious drama. Kiton’s soft-shouldered jackets, so famous in menswear for being shirt-like in their lightness when worn but substantially formal when looked at, were expressed in carefully curated houndstooth and checks. The more informal pieces were left to the look book but will doubtless have been just as carefully crafted before the red thread’s affirmatory application.
20 February 2020
“Elegance and comfort are paramount more than ever today,” said Kiton CEO Antonio De Matteis during the presentation of the label’s Fall collection, displayed with sprawling magnitude in its Milanese headquarters. Updating the Neapolitan house’s classic sartorial excellence without detracting too much from tradition has so far proved a successful move. For Fall, the emphasis was on hyper-malleable versions of the blazer, proposed in a series of knitted iterations made in luxurious 4-ply cashmere yarns, as thick and flexible as a sweater or a cardigan. The same knitted-yarn technique was also applied to deconstructed coats, turning tailored pieces into comfortable, relaxed wardrobe staples. Formalwear, too, was soft and supple.On the other hand, sportswear was given a chic finish. Padded parkas, hunting jackets and piumini were rendered in luxurious ultra-light cashmere blended with nylon and lined in fur, losing any activewear connotations and amping up the sophistication. It was an interesting swapping of rules, with sartorial dressing exuding ease and versatility while sporty attire embraced elegance.Kiton has the younger audience covered with the KNT (Kiton New Textures) line, the brainchild of De Mattei’s sons Mariano and Walter. Focusing on a cool take on activewear, for Fall they proposed a new version of the suit, with oversized, unlined and hyper-deconstructed blazers in high-quality fabrics paired with drawstring track pants for a luxurious twist. A new addition was a series of piumini in high-tech, high-performance nylon, which nicely complemented the expanding range of sporty-inspired pieces.
11 January 2020
When someone you know well who dresses the same every day changes one small detail, the size of the impact is disproportionate to that of the change. At Kiton today there were several small changes that added up to make a significant impact. It wasn’t just that we were in a different space and that the edit was tight rather than sprawling. It was that the collection itself showed a subtle but distinct sense of ambition to progress beyond the beautifully made but same-y and staid ground that is this Neapolitan house’s comfort zone.The first all–cady silk look of V-neck top, belt-cinched jacket, loose pants, and highly shrug-on-able wide-lapel coat was, in theory, merely the slightest deviation from Kiton’s tailored norm. Yet there was an attitude to it that suggested, at last, progression in imagined context for these clothes into a milieu already populated by Agnona, Hermès, and Brunello Cucinelli that Kiton certainly has the quality but until now has lacked the vision to breach.The dresses and jackets in strips of plonge leather on georgette, the wide leather pants and belt, the Pierre Cardin–ish double-face cashmere coat in navy and white, and the attractive abstract fish-print silk skirts were more typical Kiton fare executed as per normal with irreproachable proficiency. And of course the suits were exceptional—also as normal.Sales are up 30 percent for the label. Daring to widen its vision a bit more would surely pay even greater dividends for Kiton womenswear.
21 September 2019
Menswear’s tailoring evolution is one of the shifting paradigms of modern fashion, and traditional tailors face a daunting challenge, having to confront the global dominance of sportswear and streetwear. The survival strategy for many traditional Italian tailoring companies has been to infuse formal elegance with a sense of ease, without losing handmade, made-to-measure appeal. Balancing technology and craftsmanship is a way to maintain relevance and healthy balance sheets.Kiton’s CEO Antonio De Matteis’s strategy so far has been to focus more and more on his core niche clientele of super wealthy customers, raising the bar of excellence in execution and quality of fabrics—with price points way up in the thousands for suits tailored with famous Neapolitan expertise.You don’t have to look for tectonic shifts at Kiton; every season there are just discreet adjustments to their impeccable suits. The emphasis for Spring was on beautifully textured new lightweight fabrics, and on a Mediterranean color palette with a fresh vibe. Deconstruction was also paramount: “Our blazers have a slim fit that follows the figure, accentuating the waist; a jacket has to be soft, giving freedom of movement, almost ‘leaning’ on the body without any constricting feel,” said De Matteis. “The jacket has to live and move with you, almost as if you were making love with it!” he added, in pure#italiansdoitbettermode.Sportswear was expanded to include a nautical-inspired offer of parkas, vests, and comfortable pants, all designed with an elegant edge; personalized denim pants and jackets were proposed in the precious Japanese Kurabo fiber, highlighting a modern approach and attention to younger customers. On this note, Kiton collaborated with Naples’s Vanvitelli University on a project called IGP for Kiton, an acronym for Intertwined Geographic Proficiency. The students worked on a capsule collection of classic dinner jackets in super-fine wool interpreted creatively, with the handmade basting kept in evidence as a decorative element. Inside every jacket, the geographic coordinates of Kiton’s factory were embroidered; part of the sales revenues will be donated to the school.Youth is very much on De Matteis’s agenda; his twin sons Mariano and Walter’s sporty, cool line KNT (Kiton New Textures) continues to expand.
This season they introduced new categories, like short sporty jackets in soft technical fabrications, and a new take on the classic blazer, proposed with no lapels, often hooded and easy as a sweatshirt. It was still cut with Kiton’s signature precision.
16 June 2019
Kiton is a company of profound depth and substance—it rests on a motherlode of Neapolitan tailoring expertise—yet its womenswear struggles to articulate the full span of its potential. To her credit, Maria Giovanna Paone, daughter of Kiton’s great mastermind Ciro, understands that to expose a fresh audience to this tradition, you must first get them in the door. So this season’s collection, if as yet only subtly, still marked a loosening. Although that Ciro-defined sartorial tradition remains Kiton’s credo, Paone here drew some fruitful inspiration from her mother, Rosaria—one of whose ’50s Paris-bought bouclé pieces was the basis of a full-armed monochrome bouclé coat with matching high boots that has already excited the buyers. A silk blouse with panels of fabric on the front prone to dramatic wafting when worn was teamed with a full black skirt. A white cashmere kimono evening look came with a stole of albino chinchilla. There was, of course, a great deal of tailoring: fuchsia-accented evening suits, a tuxedo, and a white double-breasted jacket. Jackets were also liberated from their orthodox down-south counterpoints—aka matching pants. This represents heresy for Kiton purists but worked well because it allowed you to focus on the jacket without classifying it as part of a suit. A pale, soft-shouldered cashmere mini caban—almost alive with delicately counterpointing plies of marl—was woven, of course, in cashmere and came with a belt for cinching. It was fantastic. Kiton’s capacity for producing masterpieces such as this is not in question: The challenge it faces is to find them eyeballs.
22 February 2019
“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”: The famous French epigram would be the perfect motto to describe Kiton’s fashion trajectory from tradition to modernity. The historic Neapolitan menswear company’s traditions of skilled tailoring and high-quality materials are still firmly in place, even if the style has evolved to accommodate a modern high-spending global demographic.Kiton’s CEO Antonio De Matteis doesn’t shy away from revealing that his clientele is extremely wealthy. We’re talking top-tier CEOs from Silicon Valley, or mega-powerful international politicians and world leaders. After having sworn this reviewer (who reluctantly obliged) to secrecy, he produced a picture of one of the world’s most powerful heads of state, who’s a loyal customer. Apparently, he’s one of the not-so-few outrageously rich Kiton aficionados who can afford its vicuña blazers, the label’s jewel of the crown.The vicuña mystique is such that the fabric is said to have been used by ancient Inca tribes to wave their kings’ mantles; it’s a precious fiber, produced in extremely limited quantities. Kiton has secured not only a privileged access to vicuña suppliers, but also, through the recent acquisition of the prestigious Lanificio Barbera, the facilities to directly control the very production of the made-to-order vicuña blazers, which are sought after by clients who can spend €30,000 to €50,000 on a jacket. It’s a sort of menswear haute couture. “We’ve been able to work on vicuña’s jacquard patterns and colorizing like never before,” De Matteis proudly explained, showing an unassuming deep-blue scrap of finely textured fabric, which revealed its preciousness only to the touch. Divinely soft, smooth, and featherlight, it was cut into relaxed tailored blazers, paired with corduroy pants for luxurious, comfortable ease.Kiton belongs to the long line of Neapolitan tailors whose traditional technique of soft tailoring is at the roots of the laid-back construction now dominating men’s updated formalwear. The label’s repertoire has expanded and morphed into a luxurious hybridization of tailoring and sportswear, which is also offered in made-to-measure iterations. This season, even denim was given the luxury treatment with nutria appliqués, while the streamlined city coats were lined in weasel or mink; what looked like a sporty, outdoorsy fleece jacket was actually made of a thick, sensuous cashmere yarn.
In true Italian manner, Kiton is a family business; De Matteis’s twin offspring, Mariano and Walter, also presented their third small collection, called KNT (Kiton New Textures), a line of upscale-cool unstructured urbanwear for a younger, but surely deep-pocketed, clientele. In hues of gray and black, relaxed in fit, the lineup boasted the same high-quality standards of execution as the main line. As the saying goes, like father like sons.
12 January 2019
Womenswear sales at Kiton—although still secondary to menswear—are up 20 percent. What an appropriate 21st-century gender flip it would be if the apparent sunset of suiting was followed by a new dawn of popularity for the form driven by female consumers. Men, the slobs, could shuffle around in their hoodies and track pants, leaving it to women to relish inhabiting civilian clothing’s most evolved expression of power.At Kiton, Maria Giovanna Paone continues to deliver exquisitely rendered feminocentric iterations of the tailoring form so refined by her family company. The soft-shouldered, cashmere, silk-flecked check suit in Look 10 and the belted windowpane in Look 8 were the best-expressed iterations here. Look 9’s sublime raw Irish linen jacket and Look 6’s seersucker-seeming-but-in-fact-cashmere-silk jackets had harder shoulders, which is fine—if a bit less comfortable. As women’s tailoring looks, they seemed a little muddied by the gathered skirt and the Bermuda short with which they were respectively teamed. A Vogue Runway boss of mine had only this morning reflected on the infantilizing effect of teaming shorts with tailored jackets—exactly as I have heard many menswear-heads postulate in the past. Kiton does more than suiting. The white cashmere coat—around $7,000 at retail—in Look 11 was a glorious item, but the country club–naval stuff in Looks 2 and 3 and the print shirtdress in Look 5 seemed a little off the path Kiton should be carving out for itself as a maker and purveyor of the finest female-designed, handmade Italian women’s tailoring in the world. To my (little) mind, Kiton should broaden its cultural and demographic aperture while fixing its focus squarely upon that tailoring metier.
25 September 2018
The mainline menswear landscape of Kiton is set in a cycle that reflects the conservative tastes of its by necessity wealthy clientele. As CEO Antonio De Matteis framed this collection, the Kiton man might start his weekend with a subtly dressed-down Friday: perhaps a superfine knit T-shirt under a deconstructed yet pretty-fitted blue suit in “solaro” 13.2 micron wool and a pair of woven sneakers. Maybe even a pair of carefully washed jeans held up by a K-buckle belt under a superlight silk sports jacket and a printed shirt whose collar, gasp, is not entirely constrained within the terms of that jacket’s lapel. Of course if he’s still closing a deal the full suit-and-tie remains a go-to option both for Kiton man and Kiton itself.Once his toil is finally ended De Matteis characterized Mr. Kiton mainline man’s next stop as a transfer to the tax haven of Monte Carlo, where he might hit Nikki Beach to splash a jeroboam in white jeans, loafer/sneakers, and a confidently checked jacket, or hang on his boat in variously exquisitely manufactured but unadventurously drawn pieces of sportswear. The wider world is changing, but the universe of Mr. Kiton apparently remains constant, and in truth there was nothing on show today that felt even vaguely different to the collections described in recent seasons.Kiton’s womenswear is inherently more interesting to observe because Maria Giovanna Paone is working to create clothes for women that utilize her profound understanding of Kiton’s masculine expertise. And the naive but sincere attempts of De Matteis’s twin sons Walter and and Mariano to millennial-ize Kiton’s constituency in the capsule line KTN, a few of whose looks are at the end of the book here, aren’t bad either. Mr. Kiton however—and lucky him—seems stuck on that yacht. But why not?
16 June 2018
Ciro Paone founded Kiton 50 years ago. His daughter Maria Giovanna Paone—now joint CEO with her cousin Antonio “Toto” De Matteis—came on board in the mid-’80s after persuading her initially unconvinced father that having a family and running the family firm weren’t mutually exclusive. Now, she reported proudly at the Kiton presentation, her children are readying themselves to become the third generation of Paones to steward a house that employs 400 tailors and other artisans plus 400 non-production staff at its five manufacturing sites in Italy and 53 stores around the world.Ciro’s granddaughter Martina, 21, is completing a master’s in luxury brand management in London while her brother Ulderico, 19, is in the middle of a several-month stint working on the floor of Kiton’s tailoring site outside of Naples. They’re very lucky kids because Kiton is a dream of a luxury company. As well as the men’s tailoring for which it is famed among the well-funded, it manufactures its own sportswear, shoes, and everything else.This womenswear collection represents just a sliver of Kiton’s turnover, but it is Maria Giovanna’s baby—not nearly as important as Martina and Ulderico, of course, but a passion. Shaped by a woman who works within a male-dominated milieu (and a hermetically Italian milieu at that), the aesthetic is informed by that experience. The fabrication is as lush as anything available anywhere—absolutely on a par with Hermès, Agnona, and Loro Piana.That robe coat in the first look was based on an ’80s Kiton menswear trench that was pared down and remade in guanaco. The Prince of Wales jacket under it came in a very specifically special cashmere with small insertions of silk to lend a gentle glimmer. A check bouclé cashmere wrap jacket with a leather-backed belt was, to look at, self-evidently something you’d cherish for its versatility. The herringbone Shetland jacket, buttonable up to the neck, that you can see belted under a cashmere technical parka was extremely, extremely lovely, too. The women’s sneakers—a new Kiton category—and the cashmere jersey sportswear—a pretty well-established one—were strong.Kiton is a brand whose apartness from the fashion conversation is sometimes cherishable and sometimes frustrating.
It would be really exciting to see a project, say, in which gifted designers currently not under the cosh of ongoing collection manufacture were asked to sketch even just a single garment of their choice as the ne plus ultra of its kind, and for Kiton then to use its almost nonpareil manufacturing craft and put it into very limited-edition production. Imagine an Elbaz x Kiton black silk bouclé dress, or a Philo x Kiton paper technical leather raincoat, or a Pilati x Kiton lacquered jersey smoking, or a Gigli x Kiton anything . . .That’s just pie-in-the-sky, writing-in-a-traffic-jam stuff—probably catalyzed by Moncler’s excellent Genius hullabaloo. And it’s not to imply that Kiton is dull, because it isn’t. These clothes are beautiful, ultra-sustainable, and made in irreproachable working conditions: Their quality is the statement. However, that Kiton quality is so irreproachable—and the Paone family voice, so consistent—that it might consider sometimes recruiting impeccably talented outside voices for the occasional harmonious duet. This would bring new clients to the house without falling into the trap of subordinating its identity by installing a creative director they absolutely don’t need. Once through the door, many would doubtless wish to linger chez Paone.
27 February 2018
Although the twin sons of Kiton’s CEO Antonio De Matteis have been involved in the business for the past seven years—and they’re only 26—today’s presentation marked their debut stand-alone project. Labeled KNT for Kiton New Texture, the capsule consists of pieces that could be compared to the iPhone X of jogging suits. In 14-micron wool stretch—almost baby-skin soft—the dark gray single-pleat, cuffed pants make classic jersey seem as clunky as a Discman, while seamless covered plackets give the impression that jackets no longer have home buttons. Wool-paneled sneakers with sport bands and aerodynamic soles are all rounded corners. Walter and Mariano De Matteis have near-model stature, so they were ideal poster boys, and it wouldn’t be a leap to imagine their high-net-worth peers barely blinking at the remarkable prices (upwards of $1,500 for a hoodie). But even more than an iPhone X, the KNT range is entirely discretionary, so it will be interesting to see how it performs at retail. If nothing more, now that the brothers are taking on a more visible role, they might prove an asset, putting a face to Kiton beyond a worldly, well-dressed league of one percenters.Still, the showroom was staged as usual with updates on categories that Kiton considers its essentials. The interiors of the brand’s famous vicuña jackets now come bearing a subtle print on the inside or a double-face yangir cashmere lining, for example. Only a handful of people might ever see either, but they certainly succeed in sartorial one-upmanship. As De Matteis père skimmed past a substantial selection of outerwear with features that ranged from technical thermal lining in the brand’s signature red, to eight-ply cashmere sweaters and patterned shirts, different personalities and purposes came through more noticeably than with suiting—which is always difficult to discern on the rack. Men, he said, are buying more of this clothing since they might change six times over a weekend, whereas they can extend a few suits through the week. Hence the reason for KNT, even if some customers—De Matteis includes himself among them—might stop shy of such a sleek look. “They’re pushing us to be more open,” he said of his sons. “They are going to approach a different customer.” Let’s wait and see.
14 January 2018
Kiton is sincerely nondirectional—an Italian tailoring house with no pretensions to zeitgeist-surfing, but a total commitment to quality. Maria Giovanna Paone has, for several seasons, put out some pretty nontraditional womenswear, venturing squarely into the realm of the notionally feminine.While that has gone down well enough, the buzz at the house’s trunk shows—especially in the U.S. market—has been a shout for suiting. Kiton’s core specialism, handmade Neapolitan tailoring in the finest possible fabrics, is driving demand. Here, Paone listened, launching the collection with a reduced white tuxedo jacket with a hidden pleat lapel in white silk cady, teamed with matching cigarette pants. A two-piece cut in a silvery gray and white tufted Scottish weave, another two-piece (double-breasted this time) in blue silk linen, the tailored leather jackets, and some punchily toned wide-lapel suits in brushed superlight cashmere were all fine examples of Kiton’s prime calling. Paone offered a bit of non-tailoring as well, in a suite of bourgeois boho striped caftans, some tie-foulard pussy-bow double-sleeved blouses, and a few gridded palm-print silk separates. These served ably as harmonious complementary seasoning to the main product—the reason that those who know about Kiton go there.
21 September 2017
If you build it, they will come. Apparently they'll come if you sew it, too. Front and center at Kiton’s Spring presentation today stood an installation of the house’s latest flagship pieces: “Summer vicuña” blazers, which, CEO Antonio De Matteis noted, have already received plenty of pre-orders. They cost approximately $27,000 per jacket. But Kiton’s client is wealthy, and the garments, for those able to entertain paying that kind of sum, are as close to heaven as the high-altitude South American plateaus upon which vicuñas graze.Beyond the five-digit sphere—though still in ultra-luxe territory—Kiton’s world is exactly that: a universe of finery, and an expanding one at that. Spring also features coats with thermal silk lining—they’re very chic and as light as vapor. Weightlessness was a recurring theme, with feathery nylon windbreakers (Kiton is adding more and more sportswear) and liner-less linen-cashmere blazers in the mix.De Matteis made two noteworthy points, too. Kiton has seen a whopping 34 percent increase in suit sales since last year, and the CEO thinks it’s because more and more younger guys are buying them. To subtly appeal to this youthful spirit, he’s even loosened the more traditional sport coat; the proper shoulder is still there, but the body is looser, more billowy. And even for those completely uninterested in the traditional, the brand has options. A denim bomber jacket is a best-seller and looks pretty funkily enticing with Kiton’s signature red dot logo represented as heavy hardware buttons.
17 June 2017
Even though Kiton inhabits the historic former headquarters of Gianfranco Ferré at 21 Via Pontaccio in Milan—after which Ferré named a fragrance—it is not a house that entirely fits into the milieu of Milano Moda. The irony of this is that Kiton’s raison d’être is fit: It is one of the greatest tailoring houses in Italy. In the showroom today, Maria Giovanna Paone preferred, as usual, to lay out the clothes and let them (almost) speak for themselves. No music, no hype, no bluster.The pieces were grouped according to category in various rooms. First was a chamber of outerwear. A double-face waterproof silk raincoat with narrow leather piping and a mink collar; a cashmere-chinchilla mix single-wrap coat in black with a detachable mink lapel; and a harder-contoured but still soft-touched check military topcoat were a few of the palm-meltingly fine items worth fondling. In the corner, almost apologetically, was a silk dévoré velvet dress—finely strafed with a sparkling arc and tied with a pussy bow—alongside a black coat in a tonal cashmere herringbone jacquard, part of a monochrome evening capsule that also boasted handsome organza blouses and tuxedo-touched tailoring.The next room featured more coats in contrasting-color double-face cashmere—a made-to-order capsule available in 12 colors (and with monogramming) with buttonhole details left to the customer. In the last room was daywear, including a masterful women’s suit in blue-and-white–striped cashmere flannel piped with blue velvet to match its buttons, meant to be worn with a tie-silk shirt. All these ingredients came pragmatically mixed in Kiton’s lookbook, and as we walked from room to room, Paone made no grand statements about the relationship between gender and clothes—as most womenswear designers are inclined to do. Her nontailored designs are outrageously well fabricated and deeply conventional, which is totally fine. The tailoring, by contrast, is almost unwittingly interesting: menswear for women presented entirely without any agenda except expertise. That’s equality.
23 February 2017
The prime real estate within the spacious Kiton showroom-cum-gallery was dedicated to the label’s newest jackets in ultra-fine, ultra-luxe pure vicuna. Price: $25,000 each, with the two-tone tuxedo grouping in deepened jewel tones maxing out at $30,000. One of their New York stores recently gauged customer interest in advance of its debut here; 15 sold off the rack within a week. CEO Antonio De Matteis beamed as he recounted this anecdote, clearly buoyed by such early enthusiasm, but also aware that the product showcases Kiton’s sky’s-the-limit sensibility. He seemed particularly fond of a “denim” version, as though the heathered blue somehow normalized its rarefied nature. This duality of everyday and exclusive proved to be a recurring theme across other categories, too, such as a new bundled offering, whereby a jacket, shirt, and pants in three different styles each come packaged together in a keepsake bag, aiding those who would rather avoid the exercise of assembling a total look. The outfit is priced at $10,000, which is considered entry level.Elsewhere, Kiton has developed a new “Natural Stretch” fabric woven with a special fiber that dissolves during production, leaving a noticeable elasticity without reducing the quality. Actual activewear has been newly labeled iSystem, and includes technical jackets with fur lining. While useful, they lack the handsome appeal of more classic coats—namely, a jean jacket lined with beaver everywhere except the shoulders (perhaps to reduce bulk) and a shearling topper à laLove Story.De Matteis noted that the three-piece suits in micro-patterned shades of gray are aimed at young customers, while much of the hand-crafted leisurewear will likely attract mature customers, what with all their free time. This runs counter to conventional retail wisdom, but then Kiton’s raison d’être is the elaboration of conventional to superlative.
15 January 2017
For a womenswear presentation, thisKitonoffering looked at first alarmingly empty. In a room surrounded by cutting patterns rested a half-finished gray jacket: gorgeous, mind you, but nonetheless a little sparse.Then Maria Giovanna Paone, vice president, creative director, and scion of the Kiton Neapolitan tailoring dynasty, bopped over to explain. “This,” she said mid-wave at said jacket, “is the product and the real identity of Kiton. This is our life. All its quality lies in the hand of our tailors. We have access to the best fabrics in the world and the best quality. The loneliness of this jacket is here to give emphasis to what we do.”It was a bold but justified move. Because, although there were some lovely long dresses—Kiton only does one or two a season—plus shirts and pajama pants in tie-fabric foulard, the star here will always be tailoring. According to Paone, their female clients—who only represent approximately 10 percent of the house’s business—come to Kiton because they require quality that doesn’t scream for attention. “Our women don’t want labels, apart maybe from the handbags—and then only Chanel and Hermès,” said PaoneIf you are a self-made female power broker who wants her clothes to express a form of perfection—and not to mark you as a walking billboard—then Kiton should loom large on your shopping list.
23 September 2016
Antonio De Matteis, CEO of Kiton, has noticed an interesting thing. “Among our customers, the younger ones are buying more formal and the older ones are buying more sportswear.” Eh? What makes that sentence make sense is the level of the Kiton proposition. And that level is high. Most Kiton customers are either plutocratic captains of industry or—vitally—wannabe plutocratic captains of industry. So another delightful detail from this presentation came as we hit a hung section of ultrafine micron cashmere sportswear, mostly in cream but with the odd gray stripe and scarlet spot that is Kiton’s symbol. “Most of our customers own private jets,” offered De Matteis, “and when they fly they want to wear something special to them—they want to be comfortable.”Kiton’s sales increased by 6 per cent in 2015, and exports represent 85 percent of its market. Since then, the trajectory of the business has flattened, De Matteis concedes—but he is happy with that: “For us at the moment things are a little bit stable. Yes, stable. We are not growing but we are not decreasing, and for us that is good because from what we are hearing from the rest of the market it is a very difficult time and we are happy to be stable. I think that today people are looking for quality and that is the reason we are going in the right way.” Kiton absolutely represents quality. A series of cotton or silk jersey jackets—very probably lighter than a feather—trickled off their hangers like syrup off a spoon. The suits are often in punchy tones which represent both the core color–drenched Neapolitan aesthetic consistent with Kiton’s geography and the peacock tendencies of the young men aspiring to outfit themselves in the same label they want to have a huge—and hugely expensive collection of—when they are old men. In fashion terms, some of these lookbook images doubtless look a bit garish. But don’t be fooled: Kiton is quality, through and through.
18 June 2016
Neapolitan tailoring is famous in menswear—something as wonderful and regionally particular as Normandy cheese or Californian Pinot. Why? Because the tailors of that great southern Italian city devised a variation of the stiff and constricting Savile Row suit—something that would work in their sweltering climate by allowing the wearer to revel in sartorial clothing without ever breaking a sweat. The best Neapolitan jackets feel as light as shirts and are utterly unconstricting—they are designed to liberate movement rather than maintain posture.Kiton, Naples’ largest manufacturer of top-level tailoring, has long cut suits for women, but it was very much a sideline. Today only 10 percent of its considerable business is womenswear. However, Maria Giovanna Paone, scion of the house, has quietly set about redressing the balance. Today’s collection was presented in three rooms of the former Gianfranco Ferré palazzo which Kiton acquired a few years ago. Notable elements included blouses, skirts, and dresses cut in the same heavy silk traditionally used in Neapolitan unlined ties, done up in blown-up prints drawn from 1970s tie designs in Kiton’s archive. There were a series of impressive fur pieces designed to complement the menswear sourced womenswear below them.Best of all, though, were the suits. These included a cuffed long-culotte grey Prince of Wales shot through with the faintest bit of yellow; a tuxedo that was neither slim nor wide but just so, fastened via an external loop of grosgrain at the waist; and a wide-lapel cashmere mix grey jacket, long and double-vented, with a gorgeous wide pant. All featured the transformative “Neapolitan shoulder,” which you need to wear to appreciate (Kiton’s press release trumpeted the fact that Melinda Gates already does). Kiton’s manufacturing is 100 percent vertically integrated—its factories make everything in Italy—and so is their philosophy. In the past that quality control has had the effect of insulating Kiton, preventing it from looking outward. The result: Its womenswear has been sometimes fusty. But this wasn’t at all. Only Brunello Cucinelli—and potentially Agnona—can rival Kiton when it comes to quintessential luxury Italian feminine tailoring, and here Paone showed there’s more lurking in her Neapolitan arsenal.
27 February 2016
The collection you see here represents just the barest tip of an enormous iceberg of expressively compelling luxury menswear manufactured by Kiton. This label only dipped its alpaca-clad toe into Milan’s fashion arena recently—they must have hired a consultant—but they’ve been in business since 1968. Naples has its own particular language of tailoring. Jackets, so canvassed and armor-like on Savile Row and its acolyte markets, are profoundly pared-down in southern Italy: What looks like a jacket feels like a T-shirt. Kiton was the first house to coalesce Naples’s cottage industry of tailoring under one industrial roof; it now has 350 tailors hand-stitching its product in a facility on the outskirts of the city.These pictures present a toned-down representation of the key Kiton aesthetic, but you could see the heart of the brand here on the rails; wide lapels, loose shoulders, and fabrications so soft to the touch they make a baby feel gnarled. The brand is quietly forward-facing: It has produced luxury sportswear for about a decade now, and has a denim line worked with Japan’s Kurabo that features slim European cuts and a less-slim American silhouette. Kiton is the nuts. Along with Berluti and Cucinelli, it is at the vanguard of Europe’s high church of luxury menswear, a brand unmediated by complicated theory, but rather based on simply exquisite practice.
16 January 2016