Cerruti 1881

Cerruti's strength is fabric, and that's the lens to judge it through. The house grew out of a family wool mill, so its reputation rests on textiles as much as cut. A Cerruti suit is a solid choice if you value cloth and Italian tailoring heritage; just check the make of the specific garment, since the name covers more than one line.

It's a date that predates the fashion house by decades. The label was named 1881 because Nino Cerruti's grandfather established the family wool mill, Lanificio Fratelli Cerruti, in that year. So the fashion house, founded in 1967, wears the founding year of the mill that made it possible.

At the source mill in Biella, in Italy's Piemonte region. The local water is used to wash and treat wool imported principally from Australia and South Africa, producing flannel, tweeds, cashmere, and butter muslin. Cerruti fabrics are still produced in those same workshops, which is the backbone of the brand's textile reputation.

The fashion house was founded by Nino Cerruti in 1967 with a menswear collection, and is headquartered in Paris. There's a notable industry link in its early days: Giorgio Armani joined the company as a design assistant in 1964 and worked there through 1970, before going on to build his own empire.

The house offers three lines, each for men and women: Cerruti is the top line, Cerruti 1881 is the diffusion line, and 18CRR81 is the sportswear line. There are also specialised sub-labels such as Cerruti Jeans and Cerruti Parfums. Knowing which line a piece belongs to helps you set the right expectations on price and positioning.

The brand has changed hands several times. Today the Cerruti 1881 luxury fashion house is owned by the Hong Kong conglomerate Trinity Ltd., which was purchased by its current parent Shandong Ruyi in 2017. Shandong Ruyi is the largest textile manufacturer in China and has expressed ambitions to become a Chinese equivalent of LVMH.

Because dressing the screen was deliberate. During the 1980s Cerruti began producing clothes for films, and Nino Cerruti created exclusive clothes for actors after first dressing Jean-Paul Belmondo in 1965. The house outfitted Michael Douglas in Wall Street (1987), Richard Gere in Pretty Woman (1990), and Christian Bale in American Psycho (2000), among many others.

It started in menswear but expanded early. The Cerruti label launched in 1967 with menswear, and the 'Cerruti Woman' line followed in 1976. Today the house designs and retails luxury ready-to-wear, jeans, fragrances, sportswear, leather goods, watches, and accessories across all three of its lines.

It's a genuine part of the brand's story. In 1994, Cerruti became the official designer for the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 team, and over the years the house also dressed drivers including Michael Schumacher, Jean Alesi, and Jacques Villeneuve. That sporting line runs alongside its tailoring heritage.