Training the next generation of tailors: Brioni’s Nazareno Fonticoli Alta Sartoria School
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March 10, 2025
Training the next generation of tailors: Brioni’s Nazareno Fonticoli Alta Sartoria School
The best way to preserve historical techniques? Teaching them to the next generation, as demonstrated by Brioni’s reopened tailoring school in Penne, Abruzzo.
True craftsmanship is a question of time and skill. It takes up to 36 hours to create a single Brioni suit jacket, which requires over 4600 stitches: every piece that comes out of the Brioni atelier in Penne, a town in the Abruzzo region of central Italy, is crafted by highly skilled artisans, applying historical techniques that are in place since the company’s founding in 1945.
Nearly 80 years later, Brioni is taking concrete steps to make sure this savoir-faire is passed on to the younger generations. In September 2024, the House celebrated the reopening of the Nazareno Fonticoli Alta Sartoria School, named after the master tailor who co-founded Brioni with his business partner Gaetano Savini. The school, which initially opened in 1985 and temporarily closed in 2020 in the context of the global pandemic, acts as an internal academy for Brioni tailors worldwide while also preparing graduates for creative roles across the industry. Its ethos remains the same: training the next generation of tailors to ensure the preservation and transmission of its craftsmanship, while also making up for the current lack of qualified artisans in the world of luxury.
Learning from the best
In September 2024, the school’s first promotion of 16 students embarked on their first year of training. The Nazareno Fonticoli Alta Sartoria School’s two-year course delivers 2,600 hours of full-time training, during which the graduates learn the House’s revolutionary approach to high-end tailoring alongside those who know it best: Brioni’s own local tailors, both currently active and retired. In alignment with the school’s mission to pass on traditional techniques, revitalize artisanal methods and preserve Brioni’s trademark handmade quality, each student will benefit from a complete immersion into the world of luxury tailoring, leaving with unparalleled skills.
Brioni’s commitment to craftsmanship doesn’t stop there: the House is also granting this year’s 16 students scholarships that cover 85 percent of their enrollment fees, which go up to 100% if they pass their final qualifying exams. This dedication to nurturing talent and developing activity in the Abruzzo region, Nazareno Fonticoli’s birthplace and where Brioni opened its first atelier in 1959, is a way for the House to support the continuation of traditional Italian manufacturing, which is at the heart of its identity.
The importance of transmission
Building a new generation of tailors is of vital importance, as the luxury industry is currently experiencing a lack of skilled artisans. On the occasion of Nazareno Fonticoli Alta Sartoria School’s inauguration ceremony in October 2024, Carlo Capasa, President of the National Chamber for Italian Fashion, stressed the importance of “training and encouraging young talents”: “Investing in artisan training, in fact, is indispensable to ensure the transmission of the knowledge and skills that make Made in Italy unique in the world in the production of high quality.”
This was also put forward by Stefania Lazzaroni, General Director of Altagamma, the Italian foundation that represents and promotes high-end Italian cultural and creative companies in the luxury industry: for her, manufacturing is the “beating heart” of Made in Italy and must be protected at all costs. She also warns that today’s brands might not be prepared: “High-end companies in the next 5 years will need 276,000 technical-professional profiles - 75,000 in fashion - but about 50 percent of companies will have difficulty finding them.”
“Investing in artisan training is indispensable to ensure the transmission of knowledge and skills.”
All this is in perfect alignment with Brioni’s general philosophy, based on a devotion to sartorial excellence. Since the creation of the House in 1945, Brioni has demonstrated its commitment to fine craftsmanship and meticulous savoir-faire, relying on long-standing techniques that can only be passed on by expertly trained artisans. On the day of the school’s reopening, Brioni officially launched the Brioni Foundation, a charitable initiative through which the House has supported programs for training and local development. These include collaborations with local schools, a Tailoring Operator training course at Confindustria Abruzzo Medio Adriatico and a partnership with the Menswear Design Master’s Degree at the Accademia Costume e Moda, which includes an intensive course at the Brioni ateliers.
Blurring the line between art and craft, all these initiatives aim to find the talents of the future while preserving the time-honored methods of the past. 80 years after its creation, Brioni’s passion for savoir-faire lives on through the generations.