Caraceni

A family dynasty of men’s tailoring known all over the world, with origins in Abruzzi. The head of the family, Tommaso, lived and worked in Ortona (Chieti), where he was born in 1880. Three of his sons learned the art of sewing from him, Domenico, Augusto, and Galliano. They were to make the name of Caraceni famous all over Italy, and later, all over the world. In the beginning it was Domenico, the oldest, in Rome during the 1920s and later followed by Augusto and Galliano, whose work contributed to the success of the enterprise. During the 1930s, Augusto left Rome for Paris, where he opens an atelier on Avenue d’Jena. It was a three-storey building and the location for the entire manufacturing cycle. Galliano remained in Rome with his brother Domenico. During those years from 1930 to 1940, the Caraceni brothers, in Rome and in Paris, worked unceasingly to reach the top, and they succeeded. In fact, from all over the world the most important personalities of the time came to the Caraceni atelier, including politicians, musicians, literary figures, theatrical actors, members of royal houses, and entrepreneurs. In 1940, due to the outbreak of the war, Augusto, as an Italian in enemy territory, was forced against his will to close the Paris atelier and return to Italy. In that same year, Domenico died in Rome. At the end of the war, Galliano reopened the Rome atelier, while Augusto opened a new one in Milan, at via Fatebenefratelli 16. The years between 1946 and 1970 were the family’s second artistic period, in which the Caraceni clientele changed and completed itself in accord with the trends of international high society in that time. Between the 1970s and 1980s, first Augusto and then Galliano passed away. With the three pioneers gone, the family continued with renewed vigor. In Rome, Tommy and Giulio, the sons of Galliano, manage the atelier, while in Milan there is Mario, the son of Augusto, who in honor of his father has kept the original sign “A. Caraceni on his atelier. The third Caraceni generation is very successful. Mario has received, among many awards, the St. Omobono prize, the gold medal and certificate of the Milanese Tailor’s Guild, and the Great Prize of A Life as a Tailor from the National Academy of Tailors in Rome. During the 1980s and 1990s, the fourth generation prepares itself, while already working in the ateliers in Milan and Rome, learning the secrets of the trade. The great merit of Caraceni is to have introduced, starting with their first appearance on the world stage of artistic tailoring, their own methods of cutting, so that the suit is able to follow, in an anatomical way, the movements of the person wearing it, and thus acquires a perfect wearability that is unattainable in any other way. This is the Caraceni secret, and such it will remain as long as there is a Caraceni who will treasure and transmit it to his successor, and to him only.