“So we were talking to Brad Pitt,” said Norbert Stumpfl, “and he was saying that he really likes workwear.” For that name-drop alone Pitt represents excellent value, but the actor’s now two-season campaign stint for Brioni has showcased Stumpfl’s alpha menswear on Hollywood’s prime alpha to great effect too. Until now, though, Pitt has been shot in tailoring. For this spring collection Stumpfl took the hint and inserted some workwear jackets; fitted, not-quite-trucker shirts; and pants into a collection that is usually pitched at men for whom workwear means a bespoke three-piece suit.
Some of the results you can see in Looks 12 and 14; however, a photo, film, or even live fashion show cannot translate quite how these bad boys feel to wear. Most workwear is cut in high-density cotton drill, sometimes with a soupçon of added synthetic for extra resilience, but these were fashioned in overdyed and washed silk, woven to have more substance than your usual Versace party shirt but still caressingly light and soft on the body. This fabrication worked so well that Stumpfl also extended it to a long-lapel blazer, but it was the navy work jacket that cried out most insistently to be shoplifted from Brioni’s showroom.
Elsewhere, in keeping with the weirdness of now, this was a collection that doubled down on the identity of Brioni as a Rome/Abruzzo tailoring house that was a pioneer in introducing Italian menswear to the U.S. market. Fully tailored and canvas jackets in 110 gm wool—“the lightest jacket Brioni has ever made”—came in a fetching check that became almost transparent when you held it up to the sunlight. This fabric was also used in jackets/shirts with buttoned fastenings at each hip, a throwback to early Brioni leisure jackets from the 1950s.
Overcoats, a blouson, a safari shirt, and pants were cut in two layers of superlight material so thin that when they are spliced together it takes a scalpel to create the opening. A raincoat in technical silk was, Stumpfl promised, “100 percent waterproof”: none of your mealymouthed “water resistant” at Brioni. A pulsating raspberry evening jacket in Como-milled moiré silk with a satin lining was among the highlights in a series of, for Stumpfl, unusually in-your-face color statements. It turns out he’d been using lockdown to deep dive into the Brioni archive, which is indeed, as he observed, “crazy…crazy!”
According to the designer, even during lockdown sales have been ticking over nicely, especially for the highest-fabrication, short-run pieces. However, this was a collection that cried out to be worn as it was shot in Rome: out, in the sun, with a happy dog, enjoying the feeling that impeccably made and carefully chosen menswear gives you. That feeling you get when you squint at your reflection in a shop window and think: Hey, with a good plastic surgeon, some lipo, and some prosthetics, I could almost pass for Brad Pitt.
