Antonio De Matteis, CEO of Kiton, has noticed an interesting thing. “Among our customers, the younger ones are buying more formal and the older ones are buying more sportswear.” Eh? What makes that sentence make sense is the level of the Kiton proposition. And that level is high. Most Kiton customers are either plutocratic captains of industry or—vitally—wannabe plutocratic captains of industry. So another delightful detail from this presentation came as we hit a hung section of ultrafine micron cashmere sportswear, mostly in cream but with the odd gray stripe and scarlet spot that is Kiton’s symbol. “Most of our customers own private jets,” offered De Matteis, “and when they fly they want to wear something special to them—they want to be comfortable.”
Kiton’s sales increased by 6 per cent in 2015, and exports represent 85 percent of its market. Since then, the trajectory of the business has flattened, De Matteis concedes—but he is happy with that: “For us at the moment things are a little bit stable. Yes, stable. We are not growing but we are not decreasing, and for us that is good because from what we are hearing from the rest of the market it is a very difficult time and we are happy to be stable. I think that today people are looking for quality and that is the reason we are going in the right way.”
Kiton absolutely represents quality. A series of cotton or silk jersey jackets—very probably lighter than a feather—trickled off their hangers like syrup off a spoon. The suits are often in punchy tones which represent both the core color–drenched Neapolitan aesthetic consistent with Kiton’s geography and the peacock tendencies of the young men aspiring to outfit themselves in the same label they want to have a huge—and hugely expensive collection of—when they are old men. In fashion terms, some of these lookbook images doubtless look a bit garish. But don’t be fooled: Kiton is quality, through and through.
