ROME, 1945 - Nazareno Fonticoli and Gaetano Savini found Sartoria Brioni on Via Barberini, a stone's throw from Via Veneto and its institutions. The name evokes Brioni Island in the Adriatic Sea, which in the 1930s and '40s was a hotspot for the European elite. Patrician sports like golf, horsemanship and polo were very popular there. By no accident, a mounted polo player would become the logo of the fashion house. Brioni evoked a world of elegance, vibrancy, and youth. These were the foundations and the prevailing messages of the new men's couture shop in Rome.
Nazareno Fonticoli, master tailor, was 40 years old and hailed from Penne in Abruzzo, a land of profound sartorial tradition. Gaetano Savini, his enterprising 35-year-old partner, was of Umbrian origin and had a great talent for business and communication. Together they had worked for one of the most prestigious shops in Rome, during the years before World War Two. They decided to build an ambitious atelier that would satisfy the best customers in an increasingly international capital. From the start, in fact, Americans were a driving force behind the label's growth: the world of cinema and entertainment on the one hand, and the community of formal institutions and business on the other, found in this Roman shop the epitome of Abruzzo technique and style. For many years, tailors from Abruzzo and Molise had taken up business opportunities in the capital, creating what the world would come to know as Roman Style. For Brioni this soon evolved into the unmistakable "continental look," so rich in personality and color.
The workshop started out with about 20 tailors and staff but soon employed 300 people. Unparalleled fabrics and lines that were clean yet cutting-edge pleased Hollywood stars like Clark Gable, Henry Fonda, John Wayne and Kirk Douglas, and actresses including Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor and Anna Magnani. Immediately, in fact, the demand for impeccably tailored clothing spread to female customers, building the reputation of a name that in a few decades would become one of the most successful luxury brands in the world.
The values of hand craftsmanship, combined with innovative style and business ideas and a feel for luxury and customer care, were the factors that made Brioni a symbol of excellence and exclusivity. The journey stretches from the first men's fashion show in history, in 1952, to the invention of the trunk show; from women's tailoring to industrial growth in Penne in Abruzzo; and arrives at the decades-long fidelity of nearly 500 select shops and the opening of over 50 boutiques in major cities (including London, Paris, Madrid, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo, and Mumbai) and international resorts (Aspen, Porto Cervo, Portofino, Saint Moritz, Capri and Marbella). These are now being joined by the Far East, with recent openings in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, to be followed soon by Delhi, Macao, Beijing and Jakarta. Internationalism is a constant that has allowed Brioni not only to transmit the taste and quality of Italian tradition, but to satisfy and find solutions to requests from very different cultures. This owes to artisanal skills with a flair for experimenting and creating pieces that are irreproducible elsewhere. Customer satisfaction thus became a mainstay in terms of quality and exclusivity, style and service, the latter based on a relationship of trust and mutual understanding often mediated by the made-to-measure experience with Brioni master tailors.
In 2007 in the United States, Brioni was named the most prestigious luxury men's clothing brand according to an independent survey by the Luxury Institute in New York.
