NINO CERRUTI
Like the very finest of the fabrics to which his family business is dedicated, Nino Cerruti seems never to wear out. Instead he becomes ever more insightful as experience imprints itself upon him. The nonagenarian nonpareil pioneer of Italian tailoring’s rise to fashion relevance – and the man whose first-ever label Hitman incubated a youngster named Giorgio Armani – shares with L’Uomo Vogue the wit and wisdom of a life spent staying firmly ahead of the curve.
Nino Cerruti is a perfect gentleman who has just turned 90. He swathes his body in shirts like Audrey Hepburn. Rather than buttoning them, he overlaps the edges and tucks them into his trousers, cinching them with a belt and slipping a sweater or jacket on top, or whatever else happens to take his fancy. The effect is slightly anarchic and very pleasing to the eye, which tends to become used to tailoring’s typically harmonious proportions. “Style is balance, but with a dramatic twist,” he says with a knowing smile. Cerruti was the first to deconstruct the formal suit and bring genderless garments to the masses. (It’s true that Orry-Kelly had already dressed Marlene Dietrich in a jacket, tie and pleated trousers in the 1930s, and Saint Laurent introduced Le Smoking in the 1960s, but it was rare to see women in trouser suits until the late 1970s, and then largely thanks to Cerruti.) He detests everything that clings to the body, that constrains it, that fails to indulge its capacity for movement and expression of thoughts.
For Cerruti, it’s these thoughts that above all have to flow freely, unhindered even by garments. “The right to be comfortable has its limits, but even a pair of sweatpants can be elegant, perhaps worn with a carefully chosen sweater. It all depends on who is wearing them and how they suit that person’s character,” he says. While chatting via Zoom about the mutations of fashion in the pandemic-ravaged age of distance working, we do our best to steer clear of the familiar anecdotes: his studies of philosophy interrupted by his father’s untimely death; how he founded the first elegant men’s ready-to-wear label, Hitman, in 1957; his first Paris boutique in the late 1960s that sold a mix of women’s and men’s fashions in a space designed by starchitect Vico Magistretti, who was also a regular customer of his; and of course his mentorship of Giorgio Armani.
The biography of “Signor Nino”, as he has long been called, is due for an update. There are plenty of new details to add about his life – developments and initiatives that have not only made him an entrepreneur, but also the man whom the Encyclopédie de la Mode describes as “the most French of Italian designers” – which considering that pantheon includes Pierre Cardin is a compliment indeed. We’ll start from the medium that allows our conversation to take place, the internet. The medium is the message, and this kind of communication intrigues him. Observing how the digital and productive evolution of businesses has been thrown into overdrive due to Covid-19, he recognises that the revolution brought about by the internet, e-commerce and social networks is changing how and when we express our desire to buy. But in Cerruti’s view, the coming tasks of fashion will certainly go beyond merely speeding up the production and distribution processes to satisfy these new purchasing patterns.
We will need to respond coherently to the demand for sustainability expressed by a clientele that is probably less interested in classical theories of beauty, but very sensitive to environmental concerns. The Cerruti wool mill was officially founded on the banks of the Cervo River in 1881, but its roots lie in the 18th century, when the Cerruti family name first appeared in the municipal register of Biella under the heading “arti et negotij”, a term once used to refer to someone involved in textile manufacturing. At the Cerruti factory, sustainability is a practice that starts from the product and embraces the process, the environment and society. The wools are produced with natural fibres and locally sourced recycled yarns. But in particular they are mulesing-free and traceable. (For those who aren’t familiar with mulesing, it consists in the removal of skin from the anal and buttock region of sheep to reduce parasitic infections and sores. Less painful ways do exist of protecting their health.)
The wool is exclusively processed in Biella with systems to abate fumes and dust, as the official documents state. And if you want to see for yourself, you can do so as soon as the anti-Covid restrictions are lifted, because visitors to the Cerruti wool mill are always welcome. When it comes to colours and textures, Signor Nino maintains the strictest standards in every respect. He is always searching for new patterns, colours, combinations and three-dimensional production techniques. Working side by side with his seven designers every day – looking, advising and matching yarns – he knows that the fundamental point of each textile is its uniqueness, the way it improves over time and with use. No amount of skillful cutting can remedy the limitations of a poor-quality material. We could add that this has always been a problem with the younger generation of designers, and the reason why it is so important for their ideas to be supported by manufacturers.
A long-time exponent of the Woolmark Prize, Cerruti loves soft yet full-bodied fabrics, which he endearingly calls by the kind of names a father might use for his beautiful, well-behaved children. Since childhood, he has felt and cultivated an intimate bond between form and material, “between technique and naturalness”. Perhaps it was thanks to this special sensibility that he served as Coco Chanel’s tailor for a time. He would go to her atelier on Rue Cambon without uttering a word, intimidated by her almost larger-than-life status. A mature but still “very sexy” lady, she would order a pair of trousers for herself, assessing the material at a glance. Cerruti’s favourites continue to be women in trousers, or women “in men’s clothing”, as people used to say when such expressions still made sense. To this day he appreciates disruptions that animate an apparent tranquillity. His perfect wardrobe “contains many sober things as well as some striking pieces”. Needless to say, the material is the starting point. “A fabric is like a painting: from a distance it can look like one colour, but up close you discover all the interwoven shades and textures that compose it,” he explains in his deep voice that resonates with pride and even a trace of aspiration. “Did you know that in the Eastern Asian tradition fabrics are the first expression of art?”
In 2000, the then President of Italy Carlo Azeglio Ciampi awarded him the Order of Merit for Labour. We suspect he would now prefer the title of national treasure, an honour bestowed in Japan on the great artists of beauty, in whatever form that beauty is expressed. However, it’s clear he doesn’t want such recognition for himself, but for the “noble art” of yarn and its boundless potential to become part of a person’s narrative. After all, storytelling and cinema share some of their vocabulary with textiles, between cutting, reels, the thread of the plot and tailor-made parts. Signor Nino is well versed in these crossovers between the fields, having worked for dozens of films as a costume designer and even appearing as himself in three cameo roles. He likes to say light-hearted and pleasant things about actors, for instance that “they convey really interesting and stimulating feelings by living between fantasy and reality”. And yet Cerruti has always approached cinema with the seriousness of an all-time master like Piero Gherardi. He reads the scripts, studies the sets and imagines the character beyond the costume: The Jewel of the Nile (Kathleen Turner’s plunging necklines!), Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, Michael Douglas in Basic Instinct, and Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. He also became friends with Jack Nicholson, whom he dressed in 1995 in dozens of black suits for The Crossing Guard (“I kept the factory open at night because he wanted everything ready in a week”). Cinema is another side to his ontological vision of fashion. He sees clothing as part of a whole and the expression of a way of being that needs a man’s character to be brought to life as strength and energy.
This is also the essence of made in Italy, he says. Signor Nino discovered the world of Italian excellence when he was just 30 and introduced the colour teal with the support of the auto industry and his favourite star, Anita Ekberg. The episode is mentioned in a historical account of the sector (1770. The Bianchi, the Forge, the Steel, 2014): “Fashion show runways featured grand trendsetters like Nino Cerruti with Anita Ekberg launching ottanio, or petroleum blue.” In reality, it was not a fashion show but a grand advertising presentation in Rome, featuring 20 customised Lancia cars parading around the Roman Forum and other scenic parts of the city. Out of one of the vehicles stepped Ekberg, fresh from her success in La Dolce Vita, wearing a teal-coloured dress that Nino Cerruti had designed for her. (No, he didn’t dress her in Fellini’s film, as one sometimes reads on the web; that honour fell to Gherardi, who also won an Oscar for his contribution.) The publicity campaign was aided by Cerruti’s then associates, Pinotto Marelli, Gigi Tarquini and the designer Osvaldo Testa (with them, two years later he launched the menswear line Flying Cross, combining Neapolitan tailoring tradition with Anglo-Saxon fabric styles). On that occasion in Rome, the young man who had planned on becoming a journalist realised the power of transversal communication that articulated the synergy between Italy’s many outstanding qualities.
It’s something he has never forgotten, along with a couple of other lessons he learnt much later and which he now agrees to speak of for the first time. One was his refusal to cede his business to Bernard Arnault in the early ’90s (“He turned up too soon, when I was still working full-time”), and the unfortunately completed sale of his clothing line to Gianluigi Facchini’s holding company Fin.Part. It was a mistake. Following the infamous debacle of the 200-million-euro Cerruti Bond in 2004, the dream of establishing the first Italian luxury hub evaporated and no one has ever really managed to see it through since. Lanificio Cerruti is now part of the London-based Njord Partners investment firm. Signor Nino retains a 20 per cent stake and the position of vice-president. His son Silvio assists him in his work. “Fashion often attracts businesses or people who lack the power to seduce or propagate an image positively,” he says. “You have to approach fashion in the right way. It’s like a beautiful, fascinating and mysterious creature, but you need to be gentle and avoid rubbing it up the wrong way. To win it over, it’s not enough to buy it; money alone won’t do it.” That’s because fashion calls for skill and knowledge, but most of all elegance, even in one’s manners. “That’s the beauty and the challenge of this craft.”