Cut From a Different Cloth
New Orleans Fashion Week stepped away from the traditional runway for
The Gentlemen's Edit, an evening devoted to menswear, craftsmanship, and custom
style at Luca Falcone Custom Clothiers on Magazine Street.
The party took over Luca Falcone's upstairs event space, where models
showed tailored looks while guests mingled over food and drinks. Downstairs,
the company's showroom remained on the first floor for visitors to browse.
Luca Falcone's first showroom opened on Magazine Street in 2012. The
brand's name combines "Luca," drawn from founder Joe Rotolo's childhood
nickname, with Falcone, his grandmother's maiden name. Today, the tailoring
house at 2022 Magazine St. specializes in custom and bespoke clothing made in
Italy, as well as in-house in New Orleans.
For Chandler Mitchell, a Luca Falcone clothier who has been with the
company for about four and a half years, that custom approach means helping
clients build more than a single outfit. Mitchell described his role as guiding
clients through their wardrobes and helping put together pieces that work for
them.
He said Luca Falcone's current focus is custom and bespoke clothing
rather than garments already made and waiting on a rack. If a client sees a
particular jacket or suit and wants that look, the process begins with
measurements and continues with creating the piece specifically for that
person.
The looks modeled during The Gentlemen's Edit offered examples of what
that process can produce, but they also hinted at something new. Luca Falcone
is preparing its first ready-to-wear collection, a significant shift for a
company whose business has centered on custom work.
Mitchell also provided an informal lesson in the smaller rules of
classic menswear, including how a shirt collar should sit in relation to a
jacket's lapels. It was the kind of detail that can seem invisible until
someone points it out, but it reflected the attention to fit and proportion
that runs through the company's work.
At another point in the evening, longtime tailor Alex Donez was putting
finishing touches on a collection of colorful pocket squares. The fabrics, he
said, can come from around the world, and, sometimes, the search is as simple
as finding a remnant that looks unusual enough to inspire something new.
Alex has spent roughly 32 years doing this kind of work and will mark
six years with Luca Falcone in January. He spoke very fondly of the process and
he was adding the final details, including tags, before they were ready to be
used. That hands-on work offered a glimpse of the philosophy Rotolo described
later in the evening. As fashion and other industries move toward greater
automation and faster production, he said Luca Falcone has chosen to move in
the other direction, putting more emphasis on craft and doing things properly.
For Rotolo, that attention to craftsmanship connects directly to the
experience of wearing the finished clothing. Asked about an increasingly casual
culture in which even traditionally formal spaces have relaxed their dress codes, he said the goal is
not to impose rules on customers. People can wear a T-shirt if they want, he
said, but there is still "an undeniable power and presence to dressing up
well."
The comment captured much of the evening's theme. The Gentlemen's Edit
was not simply about requiring men to dress formally; it was about what can
happen when someone chooses to put thought into how he presents himself and how
a well-made garment can change the way someone carries himself.
The evening also gave Rotolo the opportunity to preview Luca Falcone's
next phase. After years of concentrating on custom and bespoke clothing, the
company is preparing to launch its first ready-to-wear collection.
"We're launching our ready-to-wear, which we've never done," Rotolo
said. "It's been about three years in the making." Rotolo spoke of his recent
trip to Italy, and the collection will include what he described as Luca
Falcone's own house cut. The pieces shown during The Gentlemen's Edit offered
guests an early look at some of the styles the company is developing.
The move does not mean abandoning the custom experience that built Luca
Falcone's reputation. Instead, ready-to-wear gives the company another way to
translate its aesthetic and approach to clothing while making some of those
ideas available without beginning every purchase entirely from scratch.
That made The Gentlemen's Edit an especially fitting Fashion Week event
for the company. Guests could see the finished clothing on models, hear how a
clothier guides clients through the process, watch a tailor handle small
finishing details, and hear from Rotolo about where the brand is heading next.
In a week built around what is new in fashion, Luca Falcone's message
was also a reminder of what has not changed. Whether a garment begins with a
custom fitting or comes from the company's forthcoming ready-to-wear
collection, the details still matter.
