Lino Ieluzzi | 100% handmade - The Number Seven Tie

Lino Ieluzzi is a style icon from Milan. He rose to prominence as an influential menswear icon when New York fashion blog The Satorialist started to cover him frequently. Lino, as he prefers to be referred to, shunning his real name Pasqualino because he felt it sounded too “Southern Italian” (weird flex, but okay) is the owner of the haberdashery Al Bazar. Even just using the word haberdashery raises this businessman’s refinement profile to the highest level. 

 

Lino started off as an employee with Al Bazar in the 1970’s. In the early days, the menswear boutique was selling mostly jeans and tee shirts: a very different vibe! When Lino took over the store, he wanted to diversify its market and become a competitor to the successful shops in the area that catered to wealthy young businessmen. In order to make this switch, Lino started to take part in Milan nightlife, frequenting restaurants and clubs where he could talk about his shop. Of course, he did all of this while impeccably dressed so he could be a walking business card.

 

Today, Lino’s aesthetic rejects the notion of “special occasion” attire. He prefers to dress to his personal standards every day in a way that is not too formal, but is also not jeans and a tee shirt. He takes pride in the daily effort to look good and represent his personal brand. His signature look is a double-breasted jacket in a bold colour or pattern matched with more casual pants: NOT the same colour or pattern, which he considers a faux-pas.  The cut of the jacket is not like other double-breasted jackets. Lino’s design has adapted the fit of the typical double-breasted shape so that it can fit nicely over a polo shirt and be worn with jeans. His personal preference, however, is to pair the jacket with a cutaway collar shirt and a tie with the number seven on it.

 

The number seven tie has soared in popularity in recent years and the demand for it is high among menswear aficionados. You might make an educated guess and assume the 7 represents the “cravata settepieghe,” a tie folded seven times, a proud Neapolitan tradition. But no, Lino’s ties are folded following the classic three-fold style. So why the embroidered number seven? What does it mean? According to Lino, it started as a nod to the fact that his birthday is October 7 and that 7 is is lucky number. He never expected the ties to take off in popularity and become his bestselling item.