I enjoyed this little photo essay of the Ambrosi workshop in Naples, Italy. The first three slides show photos and a video by The Somchai, a nice menswear store in Thailand. I first learned of Ambrosi on StyleForum. One of the more esteemed members on the board spoke highly of a Neapolitan tailor named Salvatore, who was supposedly so gifted in the art of making bespoke trousers that he could furnish a perfect-fitting pair without even measuring you. He would eyeball it. So when I visited Naples about fifteen years ago, I was naturally excited to visit the Ambrosi workshop. Their setup is modest, to say the least — housed in an old building somewhere in the Spanish quarter and almost impossible to find, as there's no real signage. Instead, once you find the building, you have to search for the name "Ambrosi" on the intercom directory — sort of like how you find your dentist. Inside, you will find the Ambrosi family — father, mother, and son — working assiduously behind tables just as you see below. The father, Antonio, has been sewing since he was ten years old, much like other Neapolitan tailors of his generation. Older tailors in that region like to say that you can't become a bespoke tailor unless you learned how to sew in grade school. I don't know if that's true, but they say it confidently. Ambrosi's trousers are made like any other pair of bespoke trousers, although they feature a bit more handwork than their English counterparts. The pattern is drafted and cut by hand, and then the trousers are roughly basted for a fitting. They do three fittings — basted, forward, and final — each stage moving the trousers closer to their final form. They also feature a gratuitous amount of handwork: hand-sewn bar tacks, hand-sewn buttonholes, hand-sewn waistband, etc. They can also pickstitch along the side seams by hand if you request. When I was at the workshop, the father showed me how they do the cuffs. Rather than sewing a small tack into the cuffs, which would hold them into position (as would be the norm), they sew a little button on each side, which can be fastened into an invisible butthole along the side seams. This allows you to unbutton the cuffs, turn them down, and brush out any debris that would otherwise wear down the fabric. A novel and useful detail. I imagine Antonio must be in his 80s now. When he retires, his son Salvatore will take over the family business. I find it romantic that a family continues to make trousers like this. Although, rumors that Salvatore doesn't measure people turned out to be untrue — he does. IG thesomchaiofficial