Bel-Canto

Bel-Canto


Use of a light tone in the higher registers

Agile technique capable of dispatching ornate embellishments

Ability to execute fast & accurate divisions

A pleasing, well-focused timbre

A clean attack

Graceful phrasing rooted in a complete mastery of control

Air King

Elizabeth Taylor's former residence for a showroom  

Peter Kaplan instructing Antonio Ciongoli on the finer points of manhood 

Coated slub cotton/linen raincoat - $875 

Railroad stitching borrowed from the covert coat.  Inset polo coat pockets and tied waist from an M65  field jacket conjure up a meeting somewhere in East Germany -  sometime in 1957.

Cotton/linen/silk shawl dinner jacket $995

A journalist rolls up the sleeves of his shawl collar dinner jacket and heads over to the Special Forces Playboy Club in Nha Trang to interview an A Team captain.  OD green jungle fatigue pants and black NVA canvas boots with  boonie hat complete the 1967 ensemble.

Pigment dyed Marigold slub canvas chino - $175

It's 1969, and he stands outside the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria selling the LA Free Times on the corner.  Bright yellow pants, a Fu Manchu moustache and a Liberty shirt grab the attention of middle aged middle class carrying home Flokati rugs and Marimekko prints.

Napoli Blue/marigold wool guncheck jacket - $1095

1993 - Gubbio in Umbria.  Outside a bakery waiting to be picked up by a college pal who stole a farm house for $15,000 in the early eighties well before anyone knew anything other than Tuscany.  The smell of bread baking has him wondering if he should give up Lazard Freres and start the Peter Kump baking school.

French faced, navy raw silk chalkstripe suit - $1295
 

Blue/white slub cotton/linen dress shirt $175, orange linen knit tie - $155 

Early morning middle finger in texture to London's wool chalk stripes.  Mind the gap at Bank Street tube stop, French Press coffee and granola in the Captain's Room and two flights up the escalator to the 210 Non-Marine syndicate.  He's the only one on his team who reads the Independent because he isn't really a financial guy.  It's only rate times value.

Napoli blue belted double breasted hopsack house jacket $895 

She only bought it for him because she didn't want him to wear anything underneath it.

Linen one piece collar woven polo $350  Most expensive shirt in the collection due to quality of linen 

He had money. He just didn't want to look like he had money.

Pigment dyed orange slub canvas chino - $175

After the Gators beat the Bulldogs in Jacksonville, they all drove down to St Augustine and hooked up with a bunch of girls from the private college in a tavern on St George Street.  That night he had sex on the beach for the first time with a tall blonde in Lily P from New Jersey.  The water was too cold. She didn't think all that  much of him the next morning.

Summer Blackwatch Double breasted dinner jacket with slub linen/silk lapel facing - $1050, pink end on end formal shirt with pique bib - $225

He escaped Berlin in '38 for London but not before returning his WWI Iron Cross to the Fuhrer and telling him where to put it.  He made a living playing cards.  In the best private clubs.  Drinking the best champagne.  Bridge was his game.  He'd sit the next war out -- In this double breasted shawl lapel dinner jacket in an almost black Blackwatch.  If he got tired, there was always the Benzedrine inhaler in his left pocket.



Antonio Ciongoli is never loud.  If most menswear designers are GMTs and Submariners -- Antonio is the understated and elegant Air King.  And while the Air King is an entry level watch for Rolex -- So, Antonio's new line, Eidos Napoli,  is for Isaia.  Few things in life are elegant and entry points.  When discovered, they're well worth celebrating.  Eidos is able to cut out the middle man by making use of Isaia's manufacturing facilities so a fully canvased suit can be had for $1,200 and most sport jackets at $895.

It's hard not to see history in this line while admiring  how tastefully it's applied.  I think that comes with an honest appreciation and not just tweaking something historic to make it your own.  There's been more than enough of that.  And if you make a living playing cards...then the  Blackwatch dinner jacket was made for you. 

The Ethnics of Antonio Ciongoli

Terra cotta basket weave cardigan - $595 Pine/white with navy deco gingham spread collar shirt - $225 Pine/terra cotta medallion printed open weave silk tie - $150

Inspiration for our Duomo scarves and ties

Brick "Duomo" wool challis scarf - $175

Terra cotta/pine/stone gun check sportcoat - $995

Various ties in the pine/terra cotta stone story, including prints inspired by Medici family shield and Ghiberti's bronze panels for bapistry doors - all $150

Pine donegal "Medici" rolleck sweater inspired by the diamond windowgrates of Michelangelo's Capella Medici in San Lozenzo - $595

Terra cotta casentino wool maremanna jacket - $995

Terra cotta Italian chamois work shirt popover - $250

White/terra cotta/pine bold tattersall twill spread collar shirt - $225

Navy/white/lavender japanese flannel spread collar shirt - $225 & Gray knit toggle vest with suede trim - $595

White/charcoal stripe Japanese cotton tab collar shirt - $225 Fatigue green knit toggle vest with suede trim - $595 & Fatigue green/charcoal shepherd's check belted peacoat - $995

Cashmere blend crewneck with wool "guild shield" embroidery - $650  - The shields  represent the Florentine tailors and shoe makers guild as well as the Medici family coat of arms

Shearling asymmetrical peacoat - $2995 & Brick "Duomo" wool challis scarf - $175

"...he might hear a young grandson being greeted

at the Cosenza train station by packs of jubilant relatives

who would make the boy feel like a McArthur returned, or 

a kind of Latin Lindbergh in a ticker tape parade -

except instead of confetti, the boy would be showered

with wet kisses from endless uncles, aunts, and cousins who

could not understand a word of English.

With an 8mm movie camera, the boy would begin to 

click off scenes of these relatives…Perhaps these films

would later be shown in a kitchen back in Brooklyn

where a bedsheet, serving as a projection screen,

would be tacked up to the flowered wallpaper.

And when the lights would go on in this 

Brooklyn kitchen, tears would be seen in the eyes 

of some older folks." 

The Ethnics of Frank Costello by Gay Talese

Esquire Magazine, Sep. 1961

A few years ago Antonio Ciongoli introduced me to Gay Talese.  A meeting was set up at Gay's home and we talked for a couple hours.  I brought up the excerpt from the Costello cover story in Esquire and while  Talese remembered the story he couldn't remember his unusual but beautiful meandering off subject and loaded with remembrance and nostalgia.  I told Talese how much it moved me and he smiled, his eyes narrowing into slits, and said with some surprise that he should probably revisit the story if only to see it if it was worth republishing.

New York Fashion Week is a cold slog through mostly forgettable designers who are all trying too hard.  Throw in the pushing and shoving by remarkably nasty attendees and it's a scene light years from what I envisioned when I attended my first show in what would be Bryant Park's last.

I've cut back on shows and a lot of shows have cut back on me.  Probably as it should be since I'm not a fashion guy.  But like Talese, I love storia and especially the kind that connects to something completely foreign and unknown.  Only in this way is it possible to continue to misspell people's names.

Antonio Ciongoli of Isaia's Eidos showed me his new line for Fall / Winter 2020.  The show room is still in the understated quiet of Elizabeth Taylor's townhouse on West 56th.  If you're quiet,  you can almost hear the walls talk as Anthony Perkins gets drunk and Richard Burton orgasms.  Antonio has had a lot to do with educating me in Italian apparel.  But I still think, as a whole, the Italians are too studied.

If American sportswear is about being relaxed and casual, then the Italians have taken that and extruded it through endless and needless details: scarves in July, wrist dental floss, double monks and now triple.  Pitti is all you need consider to get my point.  I like the billowing sail of an oxford button down over a man's alligator belt -- Antonio prefers a more fitted silhouette…over an alligator belt.   Seems there's always something to agree on.

I'm not writing for anyone but me so what you see here is what I like.  I love green and don't think anyone uses it enough.  It's everywhere in this collection along with my appreciation for the even rarer color I call, 'dried blood' or what Antonio calls, 'terra cotta." If you cut yourself shaving a lot then this is a no brainer for you.  Even the chamois pop over comes from another place but the roots are so American.  What you do with Eidos is your business…tang it up all you like --  Or, just leave it alone and let it speak for itself.

Update: Following are retailers for Eidos Napoli.  

For spring, it will be available online via Carson street clothiers, CHCM, The Armoury, Haberdash (Chicago) and Lawrence Covell (Denver). All of these stores will also carry in store as well as Charles Speigel (Pittsburgh), Boyd's(Philadelphia), Pockets (Dallas), Sy Devore (LA area), Carriere (LA Area), Steven Giles (Oklahoma city) Scoop (East Hampton and Brentwood), Syd Jerome (Chicago), Mr. Sid (Boston area), J3 (Cleveland area), AK Rikks (Grand Rapids), Butch Blum (Seattle), Shaia's (Homewood, AL), Oak Hall (Memphis) and Got Style (Toronto).