As the grandson of Giovanni Canali – who started Canali in Italy in 1934 with his brother, Giacomo – Stefano Canali might have been expected to automatically join the family business. But it was the ’90s; Manhattan beckoned, and so he chose Wall Street instead. Here, he was often in the company of fellow bankers who were wearing suits labelled with his family name – the type of elegant tailoring that international, successful professionals – including one Barack Obama – so loved to adopt to give them some Italian flair.

But in the end, the allure of the mother country and the challenge of evolving what is one of its best-known fashion companies proved too great, and so he returned to learn the ropes.

Fast forward a couple of decades and today Stefano is CEO. However, he half-jokes that his journey has been “cursed”. First, when he was promoted to general manager in 2008, the financial crisis bit, and then again when he got the top job, the pandemic ripped up not only fashion retail, but, in particular, the type of suited-and-booted look Canali was famous for.

Interestingly, this 50-year-old says he was not unduly worried about the shift towards more casual dressing. ‘Well before the pandemic, Canali was proposing a collection that blurred the distinction between formalwear and sportswear,’ he says. ‘Most of our casual pieces are made out of cashmere or linen and wool. They are very much consistent with our DNA: today we mix and match – wool trousers, soft cashmere polo shirt, a loafer in suede; a linen shirt underneath a deconstructed pinstripe suit that has little to do with the suits of old with their shoulder pads and wide lapels.’

And, as an Italian, making a collection exclusively in Italy, he never doubted continuing pre-eminence of the jacket in the male wardrobe. ‘It’s about the beauty of proportions. These are architectural proportions inspired by our culture, by buildings that are masterpieces. The shape of a suit, of a jacket, is that in which a man looks his best. Fabrics get lighter, construction softer. But it’s essentially a similar shape, only articulated differently.

If the Italian sartorial tradition was under threat, he reasoned, it was not from an aesthetic shift, but from a more existential one. For Canali to be fit for future purpose, it needed to move from thinking about garments to thinking about ethos: ‘It’s not just a product; when we sell a jacket, we’re expressing our values too,’ he clarifies.

Stefano started to think about the old Canali jackets in his wardrobe that he still wears and loves, and describes as ‘companions of your life’. ‘I realised that a sartorial suit is sustainable by design; it is designed to last,’ he explains. ‘So it was only right that Canali should really tackle the wider sustainability issue head on.’ Because it’s what customers, especially future customers, will expect.

‘I wanted to embark on a sustainability project to show respect towards people and towards the planet,’ says the CEO. And, acutely aware of potential charges of bandwagon-jumping, he determined to approach this project seriously. ‘Instead of coming up with greenwashing, we’ve decided to measure our environmental footprint using third-party methodology endorsed by the European Union; this measurement will become compulsory in a matter of years.’

He explains that the idea is to adopt a comprehensive approach – looking at both product and organisational impact. ‘You measure your impact according to 16 indicators: carbon footprint, eco toxicity, land use etc. According to this, you then target the most important issues.’ It’s taken two years to gather the data and gain certification, and it’s thrown up some interesting results – for example, that two-thirds of Canali’s carbon footprint comes from raw materials. The remaining third he’s addressing practically through changing energy consumption and the use of fossil resources.

‘As far as the two thirds that are the most difficult to tackle, we are enhancing the care and repair services offered in our flagship stores. Durability and the life of your clothes becomes longer as you alter the jacket or change your broken buttons. We are also experimenting with fabrics, with recycled fibres and organic fibres.’ Candidly, he admits that this is difficult: ‘Unfortunately we are finding it hard to find these fabrics worldwide, because the ability of manufacturers to come up with something fully certified is very poor. So we are putting pressure on our suppliers to change and produce this quality.’

So exercised is Stefano Canali about the poor end-of-life of fashion products that he has helped found an Italian consortium called Retex. Green, which is looking at how best to manage, recover and recycle pre- and post-consumer waste from the footwear, leather goods, clothing and textile fields.

‘In the end, of course, what our grandparents used to tell us was not scientifically proven, but it’s true,’ he says. ‘By using high-quality fabrics and quality manufacturing, and wearing our clothes for years, we show respect and understanding of true value.’

canali.com