If you didn't have a guide, you would likely miss the Cifonelli atelier on rue Marbeuf. There's nothing to announce that this is the home of Paris's finest custom suitmaker. The Cifonelli family is too humble to even post a marker on the entrance; there's just an unpainted oak door to the left of the recently renovated off-the-peg store, itself a no-airs affair with a few racks of shirts made in Bergamot, folded cashmere sweaters knitted near Venice, respectable machine-sewn suits from Naples. One navigates, then, through an abbey-quiet courtyard, ascends a set of well-worn marble steps, and arrives finally in a little salon with a chartreuse paisley rug—the jolie laide of carpets—and copious samples of vicunas, double-faced cashmeres, Super 100s.
"This by hand, this by hand, this by hand…" It's both a solicited explanation of the technique and a mantra, spoken by Lorenzo Cifonelli, who is small, dark, and handsome, but above all proper—as he inspects a customer's finished coat. "All by hand."
Some of the handiwork is, in fact, Lorenzo's. Only Cifonelli family members can handle the cutting shears here, and that's the way it has been since 1926, when Arturo Cifonelli wandered up from Rome to open this studio off the Champs-élysées. (There was a detour to Savile Row.) Two generations later, Lorenzo and his cousin Massimo are now the proprietors and oversee fittings. The sewing is left to hired needles, though this is hardly an insignificant task: Seventy hours or more can go into seaming a single jacket. There are 40 employees who work at rue Marbeuf full time, including the jaunty matron who sits near the kitchen window, stitching by sunlight—a bygone image that could just as well be hanging at the Musée d'Orsay. for eight decades, a parade of politicians, actors, businessmen, and nobles has been fitted in these chambers, and emerged expertly cloaked, though don't expect the Cifonellis to divulge any names. "We are a discreet company," says Lorenzo. "Our customers are introduced. They come first with a friend." The suits don't even need a label, only a polite slip of confirmation tucked inside one of the pockets.
"A very famous designer, one of the biggest, once said, 'A Cifonelli suit you see from 100 meters, just only from the shape,'" says José Berrincha-Rodrigues, manager of the shop downstairs. A little digging reveals that the designer was Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel, himself a Cifonelli client before Chanel expanded its menswear collection. "There is a signature," Berrincha-Rodrigues adds. "The Cifonelli shoulder. Usually in a suit you have a normal shape. The shoulders are straight, you see. But with a Cifonelli, they curve to give more comfort to the narrow chest here, so there's movement, but it also looks slim. People who know can recognize it instantly."
Indeed, the cut is so iconic that, while Gallic presidents used to favor Cifonelli suits, French politicians now rarely wear them for fear of being thought too extravagant. (Custom suits start at €4,300.) "To spend a lot of money on clothes, it is not good for elections," explains Lorenzo, shaking his head more out of pity for the politicos than concern for his own business. There are, after all, always others finding their way to him, or he to them.
