Antonio Liverano is a gracious and amiable man, the very soul of a hospitable and kindly gentleman. But I wouldn’t argue with him. He’s one of those rare people who has tested the options, studied the possibilities, weighed the alternatives, and has come to his conclusions. For myself, when Antonio Liverano speaks, I listen, I take his advice. I’d sooner have argued with Michelangelo.

It is totally unsurprising to me that one of the world’s great tailors – many aficionados of the art would argue the greatest – has made his home and his atelier in Florence for over fifty years. After all, Florence is the home of art and genius, it invented the Renaissance and is the fount and repository for the artistic achievements of Cimabue and Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Masaccio, among so many others. The House of Liverano & Liverano is one of the last tailoring houses in this city of incomparable style, that carries on the ages old tradition of refinement in the art of needle and shears.

The Italians, as one might expect, could never have agreed on a single style to represent themselves, and so each major region of the country dominated by a renowned city has its own style. Naples, Rome, and Milan predominate, but Florence, sitting as it does in the very heart of Tuscany, is special. The Florentine style, I’d hazard to say, seems to have developed by noting the virtues of the other styles, rejecting the idiosyncrasies, and perfecting a garment of masculine refinement and proportion totally free of eccentricities.

And Liverano has succeeded because he is the master of this approach. The cut of a Liverano suit has the clean, timeless, urbane style appreciated by gentlemen around the world. It is, in short, an International House Style of cultivated finesse. Antonio Liverano is the master of rational luxury.

The Liverano coat is a model of proportion, with an absence of gimmicks and needless detail. The emphasis here is on clean lines and comfort. The shoulder is soft and slightly sloped, extended just a whisker’s breadth, and the sleevehead is gracefully and subtly rounded. The sleeves themselves are set in high, tapered, and curved to favor the arm at rest or moving. The chest area is full without being drapey, and has a generous lapel which seems to imperceptivity flair – I’m never quite sure if this is in fact true, or just my imagination -- slightly outward to a minutely lowered gorge and breast pocket.

The waist is gently tapered and the skirt sits close to the hips with delicately open quarters, all of which make for a trim, restrained silhouette. Complimenting trousers sit on the hips, have a bit fuller thigh, and taper gently to the cuff.

All in all, this is a perfectly balanced, slightly minimalist approach with no element emphasized and no gimmicks. A beautifully proportionate, clean, and comfortable gentleman’s suit worthy of a Leonardo. But then, we know Florence has a long history of being home to great maestros of beauty.