Natalino offers a lower level of tailoring than most brands we cover, but with much more PS style than others at that price point. Particularly now they have a physical shop in London, they’re competing with the likes of Hackett, Boggi or SuitSupply, and I’d certainly recommend Natalino over them.
For quite a long time, I confess, I didn’t pay much attention to Natalino. The selling point seemed to be mostly price; they were cheaper than anyone else selling Neapolitan-style tailoring and there didn’t seem to be much added in terms of style.
When we went into the store recently and spoke to the founder Nathan, he talking about this point around price: he started Natalino online after leaving his job at Merrill Lynch, because while he and his friends loved having bespoke Neapolitan tailoring, they didn’t want to pay that as day-to-day clothing. Price was always a factor.
There are a few problems with selling on price, but one is it restricts how much you can add your own personality – basically, how much you can sell the clothes you want. “The Neapolitan factories we worked with all had a default style that was shorter, tighter, with big dramatic lapels,” said Nathan. Developing a separate block and style takes time, and money.
“This double-breasted you’re trying on,” he said as I tried a size-48 navy flannel in the store, “is our fifth variation of the style. It’s now much more what we like than at the beginning. It’s more relaxed, with a lower and more rounded peak. It’s easier to wear more casually.”
Since Nathan brought on staff David and Ruben last year, and opened the shop on Mortimer Street, the company has changed a fair bit. “We now do more of our own photography, lookbooks, we communicate the style,” he said. “We’re also getting better at having stock in – though as things have been so busy since we opened, even that’s been hard to keep on top of.”
The shop and staff mean added costs, but Nathan has done his best to keep price increases down. “They have gone up, but not much. We still have a lot of guys coming in because the value point so we need to retain that.” A jacket is now between £450 and £525, with trousers £195 extra.
Of course, the price would be meaningless if the style wasn’t also good, and I was impressed at what I tried on.
The jackets are all made in Naples (the trousers in Portugal) and it has that feeling of a genuine Neapolitan jacket: spalla camicia shoulder, open foreparts, rounded and rolling front edge. It has all the aspects of Neapolitan style that have made it so popular, with none of the extreme details.
The armhole is quite high and the sleeve large, which is also impressive at this price. The block itself works particularly well on those with more sloping shoulders, Nathan admits, and so it’s good on me. Those with really square shoulders find it harder.
And it should be made clear that Natalino don’t do MTM or anything similar – only ready-to-wear and alterations to it.
If I was being picky I’d want a little less pick stitching on the edges and lapels, but I know some readers will like that. The trousers are also genuinely high rise, which is not what I prefer, but again some will love it. Things like the shetland knits they now do are cut shorter with those trousers in mind.
So if the cut is good, what do you lose by being at this price level rather than Anglo-Italian, for example?
Well the differences are actually quite clear when you put the jacket on. The fronts are partly fused and the lapels and collar feel solid. There is none of the malleability you get with a more hand-made garment, or the three-dimensional elements you get with something like a curved, hand-attached collar. The jackets are also only half-canvassed.
There are other online sellers where you can perhaps get a higher quality level for a similar price, but comparing Natalino to its peers in London, this still feels like good value – Anglo-Italian is certainly better made, but a jacket there now starts at £1,100.
And as I said earlier, the style compares very well with the likes of Hackett, Boggi or Suit Supply (though the latter is cheaper). The biggest thing Natalino probably lacks compared to those is variety – other than one tobacco linen, the range is entirely grey and navy at the moment.
“This is something we will slowly look to expand on,” says Nathan. “To be honest, most people want navy and grey, in fact the biggest request we get is for more standard suits, in worsteds rather than flannel, but it is good to do some interesting patterns and colours.” Variety, of course, is one more thing that comes with a cost.
I haven’t yet tried the rest of the clothes at Natalino, but the shirts look like a good proposition: simple make but with nice style, like the tailoring.
The knitwear will be too short for me, while the jeans are an impressively high rise but I’m not so keen on the washes. They have done other categories in the past, including rip-stop cargo trousers made in Japan, and are developing T-shirts and shorts.
It’s an interesting operation, with a contemporary-feeling store, stylish staff and now more developed product. I’m happy to say I was wrong to discount Nathan and what he was doing for so long; hopefully this piece will go some way to correct that.
natalino.co
46 Mortimer St, London W1W 7RL
