Ciro Paone founded Kiton 50 years ago. His daughter Maria Giovanna Paone—now joint CEO with her cousin Antonio “Toto” De Matteis—came on board in the mid-’80s after persuading her initially unconvinced father that having a family and running the family firm weren’t mutually exclusive. Now, she reported proudly at the Kiton presentation, her children are readying themselves to become the third generation of Paones to steward a house that employs 400 tailors and other artisans plus 400 non-production staff at its five manufacturing sites in Italy and 53 stores around the world.
Ciro’s granddaughter Martina, 21, is completing a master’s in luxury brand management in London while her brother Ulderico, 19, is in the middle of a several-month stint working on the floor of Kiton’s tailoring site outside of Naples. They’re very lucky kids because Kiton is a dream of a luxury company. As well as the men’s tailoring for which it is famed among the well-funded, it manufactures its own sportswear, shoes, and everything else.
This womenswear collection represents just a sliver of Kiton’s turnover, but it is Maria Giovanna’s baby—not nearly as important as Martina and Ulderico, of course, but a passion. Shaped by a woman who works within a male-dominated milieu (and a hermetically Italian milieu at that), the aesthetic is informed by that experience. The fabrication is as lush as anything available anywhere—absolutely on a par with Hermès, Agnona, and Loro Piana.
That robe coat in the first look was based on an ’80s Kiton menswear trench that was pared down and remade in guanaco. The Prince of Wales jacket under it came in a very specifically special cashmere with small insertions of silk to lend a gentle glimmer. A check bouclé cashmere wrap jacket with a leather-backed belt was, to look at, self-evidently something you’d cherish for its versatility. The herringbone Shetland jacket, buttonable up to the neck, that you can see belted under a cashmere technical parka was extremely, extremely lovely, too. The women’s sneakers—a new Kiton category—and the cashmere jersey sportswear—a pretty well-established one—were strong.
Kiton is a brand whose apartness from the fashion conversation is sometimes cherishable and sometimes frustrating. It would be really exciting to see a project, say, in which gifted designers currently not under the cosh of ongoing collection manufacture were asked to sketch even just a single garment of their choice as the ne plus ultra of its kind, and for Kiton then to use its almost nonpareil manufacturing craft and put it into very limited-edition production. Imagine an Elbaz x Kiton black silk bouclé dress, or a Philo x Kiton paper technical leather raincoat, or a Pilati x Kiton lacquered jersey smoking, or a Gigli x Kiton anything . . .
That’s just pie-in-the-sky, writing-in-a-traffic-jam stuff—probably catalyzed by Moncler’s excellent Genius hullabaloo. And it’s not to imply that Kiton is dull, because it isn’t. These clothes are beautiful, ultra-sustainable, and made in irreproachable working conditions: Their quality is the statement. However, that Kiton quality is so irreproachable—and the Paone family voice, so consistent—that it might consider sometimes recruiting impeccably talented outside voices for the occasional harmonious duet. This would bring new clients to the house without falling into the trap of subordinating its identity by installing a creative director they absolutely don’t need. Once through the door, many would doubtless wish to linger chez Paone.
