- Est. 1970 -
The mirror reflects the image of a tall, slender young man. He is wearing a dark jacket, making sure it fits him well. Looking at it from the outside, it almost seems like he is measuring it. His watchful eye traverses the shape of the jacket, scrupulously checks every detail, the shoulders, the sleeves, the waist. They are all important parts of outerwear, as his grandfather taught him. That man is Ettore de Cesare who is observed in the rehearsal room of his shop in Napoli, in Piazza Vanvitelli. He is the one who wears the jacket every morning as if it were his first time, caressing the fabric and admiring its perfect fit. His grandfather was a great tailor who had started very young in Piazza Carlo III.
To escape the hardships of the great war, Ettore de Cesare senior, had quickly sought a profession like any other, then choosing to be a tailor, because, as he said, it was a "profession that led to glory". It was in fact a good way to work with the nobility of the moment, who had great culture and purchasing power.
Ettore de Cesare senior worked with Rubinacci and served important people, those who had enough money to afford a personal tailor to do the entire wardrobe. So he managed to be successful, so much so that he decided to open his own tailor's shop, first in his areas and then in Vomero, which in the 70s was about to become one of the busiest neighborhoods in the city.
When her nephew, namesake, was born, he kept him in the tailor's shop with him. A little Ettore grows up among the tailors' benches, all scorched with cigarettes that the seamstresses who never give up. His grandfather teaches him the secrets, so much so that at fifteen he is already able to take the measures. It was the 80s, the years in which the great fashion houses and tailors established themselves in a period of severe crisis. His grandfather is not afraid of competition, because he is aware that he is selling culture, knowledge and not a simple dress. Ettore de Cesare was referring to the intense preparation behind the making of a dress. A know-how that is difficult to imitate and today is the prerogative of a few professionals.
After his son Francesco, it is his nephew Ettore who inherits the family passion for the world of tailoring.
After graduating, Ettore decides to change the family business by internationalizing the company. Indeed, since 1998 he has had relations with Taipei, an island between China and Japan, where he meets his customers to take measures. But the young Ettore also moves to the other side of the world in New York, where he participates in the Collective, the made in Italy fair held every year in the big apple. After focusing on these two distant but equally strategic realities, each company is very active between the United Arab Emirates and northern Europe.
De Cesare junior does not sew personally, but he inherited all the experience of his grandfather. He knows that to win over customers has to give them only the best: English fabrics, German cottons, mother-of-pearl buttons.