The Sartoria Crimi: sobriety and lightness of Made in Italy

In 1970 Carmelo Crimi, after a long and fruitful apprenticeship with the most famous Italian tailors, opens his haute couture tailor shop.

Born in Palermo, in the heart of the Art Nouveau Liberty district of the Sicilian capital, the Sartoria Crimi soon becomes a reference point for the lovers of style and fashion.

After just over twenty years, precisely in 1993, Mr Carmelo decides to support to his son, Mauro Crimi, who refines his training in the craft at the Instituto Secoli, a famous fashion School in Milan. This is where the young Mauro attends the Master of Fashion Design, acquiring the skills necessary to support his father Carmelo in the management of the family tailoring business.

The Sartoria Crimi creates, invents, designs, cuts and sews according to the ancient tradition of Italian tailoring. Distinguished by a classic and ascetic style, the creations of Sartoria Crimi combine the stylistic elements of the Southern tailoring that feature details of Anglo-Saxon origin – and the overall result is extremely elegant and refined.

The crown jewel of the Sartoria is the double-breasted suit characterised by a natural but decisive line that showcases the physique of those who wear it. Made with top-quality natural fabrics, the clothes of the Crimi masters contain the finest cashmere, flannel and English cotton, Tasmanian Merino wool, as well as shantung silk and Italian and Irish linen.

The Sartoria Crimi’s modelling technique starts with a detailed analysis of the physical build of each customer, thus rendering the final product completely unique. Every single operation is carried out by hand – from transferring the pattern onto the fabric, by tracing the lines and contours with chalk, to the finishing touches. The tailoring stage is crucial: it follows precise rules tested by time, with the use of traditional Italian and German scissors in its final stages.

Today, the Sartoria Crimi has a prestigious international clientele, composed of aristocrats, intellectuals, politicians, entrepreneurs and economy and finance professionals, as well as artists and showmen. There are many foreign customers who come to Palermo to personally choose the fabrics, try on the clothes and collect them directly at the tailor’s.

The Crimi creations are distinguished first of all by their natural sobriety and lightness that are typical of the Made in Italy style, made by the best craftsmen of fashion and appreciated all over the world.

The distinctive features of clothes by Crimi are a regularly marked high-waistline with the distinctive tall “fianchino” (hip), the tall collar and the shoulder that falls softly following the natural shape of the body. The Crimi garments, therefore, are always recognisable by their unique peculiar style features, even without reading the label on the inside, which the tailor chose to place deliberately under the collar.

The artisan workshop is still the heart of the Sartoria, the place where the craftsmanship of the Crimi masters, continues to grow and evolve in a clever mix of good taste, elegance, and modernity.