Marinella
Marinella is a Neapolitan store and brand of ties, clothing and “English goods.” The original shop sign read: “Marinella E. Marinella-Shirtmaker and Outfitter.” Opened by Eugenio Marinella, on 26 June 1914 at 287 Riviera di Chiai, it is still owned by the family. Then, it was inherited by Eugenio’s son, Gino, who led the company until the mid-1990s. For a long time, the store continued to look like an artisanal workshop of a very exclusive kind. They continued to sell English garments and creating ties, shirts, scarves and selling very British textiles.
The firm, currently run by Gino’s son, Maurizio, has specialized in ties over the last twenty years (producing roughly 120 a day), both ready-made and made-to-measure and with seven folds. The consistency of the latter model derives from the many layers of fabric, rather than the shape. In 1998, Marinella had a turnover of roughly 4 billion lire, with 25 employees.
The history of the brand
This history began about a month before the outbreak of World War I and is intertwined with elegant Neapolitan society. The journalist and writer Matilde Serao celebrated its inauguration in the daily Neapolitan newspaper, Il Giorno, in her famous column “Mosconi”. The workshop of English goods — which fills 20 square meters on the ground floor of the fifteenth century Palazzo Satriano — was furnished by don Eugenio, following the anglophile tastes of Neapolitan gentlemen.
According to Serao’s article, Marinella offered violets to women and Floris English cologne to men. Floris and Penhaligon scents, Look hats, Acquascutum raincoats and Kent luxury textiles were the products imported to Italy for the first time by Eugenio Marinella for a refined clientele, which included the Agnelli family, members of the House of Savoy, and the Neapolitan Royal House of Bourbon. Everything in the store apparently remains unchanged. The stucco on the crossed vault hung with an antique brass lamp. Even the small table with the cash till and the display cabinet in glass and mahogany.
A secular tradition
The processes of hand making, the system for importing textiles from the county of Kent and the sale of Marinella products have also all remained unchanged. The head of the company still designs the patterns for the ties and travels to England to choose the textiles: the so-called “square,” a piece of silk measuring one meter by 20 centimeters, sufficient for 4 to 8 ties. From the end of the 1970s, however, the production of made-to-measure shirts was abandoned, in order to focus on ties, whose width, according to the Marinella family, should range from 8.5 to 9.5 centimeters at the widest point.
As for the color (to contrast with the suit and shirt) and the fabrics (jacquard for the regimental style, light silk for printed textiles and wool for winter outfits) the main principal was tradition. A fundamental rule was to always choose one’s tie and, above all, never to wear a matching tie and handkerchief.
Marinella opened a second atelier in Milan. Like the Neapolitan headquarters in Palazzo Satriano, the Milanese store is located in a historic building. It’s an eighteenth-century ex-convent at 5 Via Santa Maria alla Porta. For the first time the firm opened a store separate from the workshop-salon in Naples. In addition to ties, the shop sells perfumes, knitwear, leather goods for men and women, watches, and hand-made sunglasses (in titanium and pure acetate) created by Optical City.
The new millennium for marinella
In 2002, Marinella’s turnover totaled 8.3 million euros.
Marinella and Valextra, two historic companies, together produce a line of ties entitled Marinella for Valextra in silk jacquard twill in various colors, both plain and with a figured design.
The Wall Street Journal prints a long interview with Maurizio Marinella (1955), the latest heir to the dynasty, on its front page under the headline: The Ultimate Necktie.
The first “Italian Tie Gala” is held with Seri.co. This event celebrated the accessory that symbolizes masculine elegance, and benefited a worthy cause at the same time.
Marinella took part in the conference organized by the Quality Committee in collaboration with Class Editori-Milano Fashion Global Summit. It provided an occasion to relaunch Naples as the fourth Italian fashion capital, after Milan, Florence, and Rome.
Maurizio Marinella bought out the Savoy bootmakers, Arturo Ballini’s historic shop on Via Vincenzo Monti in Milan. The Neapolitan company’s aim is to continue to create a niche product in the equestrian sector.
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