The Short Casentino Overcoat

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Like most traditional overcoats, the original Florentine casentino was a long overcoat going way below the knees. Today long coats are not popular, and many casentino overcoats will be short.

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The fur collar, which was typical on the old overcoats, is also gone. Instead more colours have been added. Besides the trademark bold orange, navy, purple and numerous more colours are to be found.

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Casentino is fashionable and often used in bespoke these days, which doesn’t make it an expensive cloth. It is simple cloth, roughened after weaving. It doesn’t feel very durable but I expect it will keep you warm for some years, if it is not too cold, where you live, and it breathes well.

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Most men will use the casentino overcoat as a semi-formal overcoat. History, texture and colours inevitably bring on a show, which make the Florentine overcoat less useful as a daily business coat, unless you are in the clothing business.

Source: The Journal of Style in Florence

Casentino at Pitti Uomo

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Instinctively, you may think that casentino is one of those silly Pitti Uomo fashions. And, it is.

That said, casentino cloth has been around for some time. It became popular with the Florentine bourgeoisie and nobility in late 19th Century. They used it for long fur covered coats with martingale backs, in other words, show coats.

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Casentino itself is poor cloth. There is nothing luxurious about the rough woollen material. Instead casentino has a romantic touch. It fits classic casual clothes, not so much business clothes, if such a distinction makes much sense nowadays.

In the photos above, two young men in modern knee long coats made up in French blue and mocca brown casentino.

Source: The Journal of Style at Pitti Uomo January 2014

My shots from Pitti Uomo – part 2

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Bespoke tailoring is about style, not fashion. That is what we learn in school. At Pitti Uomo we will get a different lesson. Bespoke tailoring can be fashion-forward, or, at least, influenced by the logic of fashion. A Pitti Uomo we see bespoke suits and jackets in similar flannel, tweed and donegal. Bespoke camel coats are also popular like the eccentric casentino ulster coat.

There is nothing wrong with that, I think. You can be well-dressed and in style, even though you favor fashionable colors, patterns and textures. A well-cut suit is a well-cut suit.

In regards to the persons on the photos, I don’t know all the names. But, Francesco Maglia and Valentino Ricci from Sciamat are there.

Photos: The Journal of Style

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