The Neapolitan jacket in Balenciaga's Couture collection History and return of the model

Italian tailoring continues to influence international fashion, even though the country's craftsmanship is going through a dark period. Yesterday morning, at the Balenciaga salon, Demna presented his final collection for the maison, a tribute to the city of Paris and the brand that hosted him for ten years. But the interesting thing is that after the show, the designer revealed that a year ago, after watching a documentary on Neapolitan tailoring, he was struck by the unstructured jackets of the Neapolitan tradition, so much so that he wanted to include them in his haute couture. This is how the Neapolitan jacket by Balenciaga was born, a model the creative director considered super modern, due to the way it fits the wearer's body. «It's basically a shirt, that's how modern tailoring should be», explained Demna, describing the impact of the shirt-jacket on his new design. In Balenciaga's collection, men's suits are huge and oversized, so the oversized and lightweight sleeve of the Neapolitan model is exaggerated. Not every detail of the design was replicated by the designer, but the influence of Neapolitan tailoring is strongly felt in the collection. But where does this model come from, and who are the tailors and designers who made the Neapolitan jacket an unsurpassable icon, capable of landing in Parisian salons even in 2025?

History of the Neapolitan Jacket

The Neapolitan jacket was born in the 1930s, in the tailoring shop of Attolini, situated in the outskirts of the city, precisely in Casalnuovo di Napoli. Here, first Vincenzo and then his son Cesare invented and developed a deconstructed, soft, and unpadded model that forever changed the history of men's fashion worldwide. Until the 1930s, the preferred style for men was mainly English—a more formal and heavier look, less suitable for the Italian heat. Vincenzo Attolini decided to make the men's jacket lighter by removing the linings and shoulder pads, while his son Cesare created a more practical production cycle, in which tailors did not have to make an entire jacket on their own, but only a part, to be joined with those made by other artisans. Hence the Neapolitan suit pattern as we know it today was created, soft and wider than the normal double-breasted suit. In the '80s and '90s, Vincenzo Attolini's grandchildren helped the company to take off abroad, expanding the business and establishing themselves in countries like Japan, where demand for the Neapolitan jacket was sky-high.

From the “manica a mappina” sleeves, with a slight gathering at the armhole for greater freedom of movement, to the peak lapels, that point upward toward the shoulders, Neapolitan elegance has, over the years, captivated some of the greatest Italian popular icons (such as Marcello Mastroianni, Totò, and Vittorio De Sica, who frequented Attolini’s tailor shop) and international ones (Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffmann, Michael Douglas, and Denzel Washington are just some of the most famous American clients of the tailor). To make the jacket more comfortable and lighter, the lining in this model is also minimal and covers only the upper interior part, while the sleeves and lower back are left unlined. Other typical details of the shirt-jacket (so called because, as Demna himself explained, it fits like a second skin) include a patch pocket with rounded shapes, also called a pignata, and a barchetta breast pocket. Another often-overlooked feature of the Neapolitan jacket is the double stitching—a stylistic trait usually found in sports jackets—which Attolini’s tailors incorporated in a more elegant way. Lastly, the Neapolitan jacket has overlapping buttons on the cuff and three buttons on the front, one of which is hidden beneath a lapel.