January, 15th, 2015

BAGUTTA
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF SHIRT LIVING

Caring for your clothing? A world-class shirt is more than just appearance — it’s mathematics whistling.

Nothing is good in the eyes of the jaded public but in the eyes of the fashion editor everything is worthy – a different slant to it. There is nothing like white near the neck and in the eye.

Bagutta, named after via Bagutta in the heart of Milan, never left the basics. Au contraire, every year since 1975, and further before since 1939 for its mother company la Cit (Confezioni italiane tessili), the Gavazzeni’s family perfected relentlessly the art of shirting: haute fabrics, unimpeachable tailoring top to bottom, and decisively modern for any upright fellow.

A shirtmaker that uses 75km of thin-yarned Super Popeline 200 from the David & John Anderson collection, made with Giza 45, Egypt’s utmost cotton, is on an even kneel with a ‘97 Sandrone Cannubi Boschis Barolo’s, price and eminence wise.

75km? To Traditionalists this is nothing short of heresy to celebrate 40 years. To Classicists, this very shirt has always been, and should always be, made the same way: produced from supreme fabrics then commendably structured by the in-house master tailors. To Modernists, Bagutta is an intellectual’s shirt: softer, accessible, swanky-forward style.

Now, in the last years – say Pitti 82 to this week’s Pitti 87 – Traditionalists, Classicists and Modernists have been perplexed over the hastily mannerisms of menswear dressing. That is to say what I deem Le Syndrome de Brummell. The Nouveau Beau’s modernizes too much, unfastens ankles, shrinks pants and jackets, mixes and unlatches colors, a look more frippé than habillé. Mind you this is my opinion, my idea of what menswear is becoming today: an en masse of tastes with and without coherence.

Men need to relax and be adorable.

Nothing gives the luxury of a shirt. Bagutta is to shirt what Italy is to fashion. The turning point came in 1975 with the boom of stylists and licenses. It started with Giorgio Armani.

Engaged in reinventing deconstructions of la giaccha, the ex window-scene stager at La Rinascente (upscale department clothing, household, beauty stores founded in Milan in 1865 by Ferdinando Bocconi) trusted CIT to produce the Armani shirts for men and women. 40 years later, he still wears and trusts them. Mr. Armani is from the Purists, an all-in-one breed of Traditionalists, Classicists and Modernists.

George Clooney is another one, a Classicist. We all admired his Cit’s Armani shirts this summer in his Venice wedding.

Antonio Gavazzeni is another one, a Traditionalist. The amiable, always smiling, amministratore delegato of Bagutta, is rooted both in Città Alta (Bergamo) and in Milano. He joined the company in the nineties, after having traveled the world to learn the craft: “At 22, I went to London for a year to work in an Armani shop, then a year in Japan and a year in New York.”

Today, Bagutta has consolidated its brand by giving importance to quality, innovation, and service.

“The heart is creativity: a large part of any of our collection is crafted with fabrics made exclusively for us. A high fabric is 80% of a fine shirt.” insists Antonio.

2014 was quite an interesting year for Bagutta, which has developed a strong vocation for export, accounting for 70% of its revenues. They have grown nicely in the US a market they need to foster, still strong in South Korea, Russia, of course Italy; slightly slowing in their home-Japan yet nothing alarming, and steadfastly raising in China.

What about 2015?

“Here at Pitti 87, we are celebrating Bagutta Evoluzione, an exclusive capsule, inspired to the metropolitan dynamic mood. It follows the main collection with a series of 30 masculine and feminine wears, the result of an exclusive innovative style and cutting edge. Bagutta is also playing with the figure 40: the celebrating print-out for its anniversary, recalled in the garments of the new capsule.”

I enquired about the strategy of distribution in this (bear) market.

“Bagutta Evoluzione will be sold exclusively in the Milan showroom in Via Tortona 35 and marketed, as well as, in our selected stockists worldwide. We recently completed the revamping of our shops in Via Fiori Chiari and Via San Pietro all’Orto in Milan. We aim to showcase Bagutta in Rome, still are contemplating London. In the next years, we are considering the possibility of e-commerce.”

Bagutta collectors, by the way, are almost always men of authority: Re Giorgio Armani, Italia’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Tenor Vittorio Grigolo and British conductor Daniel Harding amongst many. For the record, Antonio’s grandfather, the maestro Gianandrea Gavazzeni, has retained the passion for music for almost 50 years, starting from 1948, becoming the conductor and artistic director at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan from 1966 to 1968. He had his Metropolitan Opera debut on 11 October 1976, a year after the launch of Bagutta, where he conducted eight performances of Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Trovatore.

In the age of Mass Class, both Bagutta’s women and men’ shirt living still comes from a specific set of values, of which it continues to breed value: high quality collar, split yoke, removable collar stays, premium cotton fabric, mother of pearl buttons, perfectly finished buttonholes, pattern matching, clean stitching, crisscross sewn buttons, small button at sleeve placket, and double-pleat cuffs.

A man starts with his shirt. A woman too.

Ditto at Bagutta‘s !

ALESSANDRO BERGA | L’ÉDITOR

BAGUTTA
87° PITTI IMMAGINE UOMO – FLORENCE
UNTIL JANUARY 16, 2015
CENTRAL HALL – LOWER FLOOR U/2-4