ANTONIO DE MATTEIS
CEO OF KITON
“THE BEST OF THE BEST +1”
INTERNATIONAL PROJECT THE ART & LUXURY JOURNAL RECORDED AN INTERVIEW WITH ANTONIO DE MATTEIS, KITON’S CEO, IN WHICH WE TALKED ABOUT THE HERITAGE OF THE COMPANY, THE HISTORY AND THE MEANINGS THAT ARE INCORPORATED INTO THE GLOBAL HIGH-CLASS BRAND
ANTONIO, PLEASE TELL US
HOW THE COMPANY WAS BORN AND WHAT IS ITS LEGACY?
For sure Kiton is a family company. I think one of the key points of the company is that our family started to sell fabrics to tailors, that’s when my uncle converted family company into production company. After we started to sell fabrics, we started to produce jackets and suits and overcoats with the tailors. That was the big vision of my uncle, because it was happening in 1956, when Naples was full of tailors, to understand at the time that the tailor tradition could disappear, if somebody didn’t take care of it.
I think it was this genius and entrepreneurial vision of my uncle to gather all the tailors in the Neapoli area. He took care of that day-by-day step by step, like i usually say. He started to sell his product all around Europe. And he travelled by car to introduce Kiton brand himself. The reason why my uncle arrived by car wherever he went is because he didn’t like to fly. When the second generation came on top of the company, we started to sell these products all around the world.
WHAT DIFFICUTIES DID YOU FACE ENTERING THE EUROPEAN MARKET?
There were difficulties to make people understand why our product was so high-level price, because we cannot call our product expensive. The product is expensive if only it is not related to quality. And i think that what K iton is still doing is not expensive, but very cheap, which is the opposite. The secrets that my uncle gave us who to
KITON IS A FAMILY COMPANY
run the company is the law of passion which we have to transfer to the people who work with us and to the people who sell our product.
There is no secret, but the law of passion. The perseverance always to be in front, always to be next to the people to explain the product, to talk about the product. That is the message that my uncle sent us every day and now we’re trying to send to all our employees and to other people who will to be able to sell our product. We are trying to send the same massage to them that my uncle gave to us. It is something that has to be in your blood.
HOW DID TAILORING KITON BRAND APPEAR?
In 1971 the name of the company was Cipa, which combined the initials of my uncle. When we started to approach the international market, we understood that Cipa was too similar to “cheap”, for sure that is not what K iton is, and my uncle transformed the name form Cipa to K iton. The inspiration of the name came from a greek word, that is the “khitōn” (greek: χɩτών ), that represents the most elegant and the most unpretentious dress that the greek people wore when they went to pray to Olympus. Keeping this in mind the company works in a very simple way but with a lot of attention to quality and when we talk about quality, we talk about the product, the service, the relationship with the consumer, that is we are 360 degrees quality-oriented company. Product is part of the ingredients. It was the secret of our company and we are still doing that. I think that we are one of the few companies in the world that own the factory where each product of K iton is done. There is no other company that can say that. We are the only company in the world that goes from the materials to the final product, because more than 10 years ago we bought the Carlo Barbera mill, that is the fabrics factory, where we now produce more than 90% of all the fabrics that we use in our collections. And i think this was of the immense value in the early days of our company.
IS IT TRUE THAT IN THE PAST YOU DID NOT WORK WITH ITALIAN FACTORIES, BUT
PREFERRED ENGLISH ONES, IN PARTICULAR SCOTTISH ONES?
That is not true because we want to cooperate with italian factories. Kiton has always tried to use the best quality in the world of fabrics.
CLOTHING COLLECTION
HOW DID TAILORING KITON BRAND APPEAR?
Before we bought Carla Barbera Milla we used to go to England, especially Scotland, because you can find the best quality fabrics in the world there. In Scotland fabrics are still made with very old systems, there are machines that give special resistance to fabrics. That was the way how we selected our fabrics, definitely not the preconception not to use italian fabrics. Since we bought our textile mill at Biella in Italy we started to produce this kind of quality, which is very expensive by the way, at our factory and today 90% of our fabrics come from Italy.
THANK YOU, ANTONIO. AND WHAT DOES IMPECCABILITY MEAN TO YOU?
As i said before quality is the main area of the company. It is not only related to the product but for sure it means to be made in the best way that we can with the best materials that we can find. But when we talk about quality, which is a very big word, that introduces other words, such as the service, the relationship. It is the lifestyle of the people who work with you, the salary that they receive. It is a full package. You are making something of a very high quality when all these ingredients are done with the best effort that you can make. Just to mention that the salary of the people who work in the K iton company, is on average 40% to 50% higher than in any other company in Italy. This means that it makes our employees happy, whether they are with the family or with a boyfriend or girlfriend if they are young. And when you are happy you give your best effort to your company. There are many different things when you talk about quality. The relationship with the clients, the desire to be nearer to the clients, not just when everything is easy. The product, the delivery are other words. Inside these words there is so much experience for us. And we try to take care of them all.
COULD YOU EXPLAIN WHAT NEAPOLITAN STYLE IS
QUALITY IS THE MAIN ACTIVITY OF THE COMPANY
BECAUSE PEOPLE FROM OTHER COUNTRIES DO NOT QUITE UNDERSTAND THE NOTION OF THIS STYLE?
I have to be honest, my uncle was from Naples, that’s for sure. Our company is located in Naples, it can be located only here because in naples there is a very old tradition of tailoring and that is for sure the reason why we are here. But since the beginning my uncle have always tried to be less neapolitan as possible with our product. What does it mean? It means that our tailors used to make a lot of stiches just to show that the product is from Naples and is made by neapolitan makers. We think that our customer doesn’t need that, he doesn’t need to show who has made the jacket for him. I think that our customers buy clothes for themselves, not to show to somebody else what they are wearing. They are more like a collector. They are very jealous with what they are wearing. And maybe they don’t want that everybody knows that they are wearing kiton. I think this is the key point. This is the reason why my uncle since the beginning tried to be different. The softness of kiton jacket is very neapolitan, the construction is very neapolitan, but the side is much more international than neapolitan, and that is the difference between kiton and all other neapolitan companies. I think that we have always tried to present an international product that you can wear with the same attitude in New York, in Moscow, in Paris, in London without looking neapolitan. You have to look international. That is the key aspect for us. You don’t need to look local but international. And that is what our clients appreciate a lot.
THERE ARE SOME RUMOURS THAT YOUR FIRST CLIENTS WERE FROM MAFIA. IS IT TRUE?
No, that is not true. Kiton is a brand that is not so well known to people who like to shoot. Mafia people like wearing brands that they can demonstrate that they are wearing. They want to see a lot of labels outside. As for kiton and especially for suits and jackets the label is always inside. I think that our product is done for people who are professionals. Mafia can get by the store, buy what they want, but the attention of the company was for sure not that.
HOW WAS KITON MOTTO BEST OF THE BEST PLUS ONE INVENTED?
As always it was my uncle, ciro paone! What does kiton best of the best plus one mean, because it is very important? It means that we are never satisfied with what we are doing, and we always try to do better, and that is “plus one”. There is evolution of the world where everything is happening, starting from the pandemic and unfortunately to the war. We started with “best of the best plus one” which shows that we never stop and have come to evolution because we try to demonstrate that the company is always progressing. It means evolution in the style, evolution in the service, evolution in distribution, evolution in the way we represent our brand. We never stop. I think that is the new key word that we have in our mind, and it is the projection for the next two or three years for sure.
WHAT ARE THE MOST SIGNIFICANT STAGES IN THE HISTORY OF YOUR
KITON
IS
AN EVOLUTIONARY COMPANY
COMPANY FOR THE LAST 30 OR 40 YEARS?
I think there were no specific moments. Kiton as i told you before has always been an evolution company where everything happens day by day. Everything happens naturally. The passage from my uncle to the second generation happened in a natural way. Nothing was forced. I think that Kiton shows to the world that is a progressive company. It is the most important value that today we are giving to our son who is the third generation coming to the board. And i think for the market it is also one of the most important values, because everything that you are doing today can be no good for tomorrow. Older companies understand that and if you don’t understand that, your company can die. That is why we are working very hard every day to make our company evolve as much as possible. And that’s the reason why we say we never stop until we get the highest results. We are growing a lot, for example, 2022 will be our record year. That is a big example that we can give to the third generation, like my uncle was giving to us when he was alive.
ANTONIO, WHERE DO YOU PERSONALLY LOOK FOR INSPIRATION? WHAT MAKES YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
Inspiration comes from the people who are around us, from the people who live together with us and from the people whom we work with. They give us the strongest inspiration. We are lucky because we meet final consumers in our life, and we talk with them. We have lunches with them, we invite them to dinners, we are friends with them. And they give us suggestions, they tell us everything they need. Our inspiration comes from the front. It is a great pleasure to meet these people and with their help it is much easier to understand what the company has to do. WORLD.KITON.COM
