Carnet

Jacketing and occasion cloth from Como

Carnet works from Guanzate, near Como, in the northern Italian district that has handled silk and fancy cloth for generations. Since 1991 it has belonged to Ratti, which Antonio Ratti founded in Como in 1945 as a silk weaving business.

Carnet keeps a working library rather than a museum. Seasonal jacketings and ceremony cloth come in, sell through and give way to the next, so what you see at a fitting is what the house believes in now.

The menswear range runs from wool, cashmere and linen through to Harris Tweed and seersucker, but its centre of gravity is jacketing and occasion cloth, the texture and pattern you choose when the brief is anything but plain.

We reach for Carnet when the garment is for an event rather than an office: a dinner jacket with a figured face, or a wedding suit that photographs as well as it wears. Tell us the occasion at your fitting and look through the current book with us. The right length tends to announce itself.