Naples has been renowned for centuries as one of the world’s most crowded and impoverished cities, famous for its squalid slums (there was some debate a few years back as to whether it was more accurate to call Naples the Calcutta of Europe, or call Calcutta the Naples of Asia), its infamous pickpockets and Mafiosi, and its celebrated corruption. When Joseph Conrad wrote a short story about Naples, he wrote about an armed robbery. And when Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, visited Naples, he was frightened by the avidity with which the locals sought his wallet.

Naples is also one of the world’s most creative and energetic cities, a Mediterranean version of New York. It has the same energy, the same beautiful people, and the same nonstop tempo as Manhattan at its most frenetic, and it’s been that way even longer.

The energy and criminality have the same roots.

“Gayest city in the world,” Herman Melville wrote in his diary, “no equipages flash like these; no beauties so haughty. No cavaliers so proud, no palaces so sumptuous, etc., etc.... Could hardly tell it from Broadway.” Mark Twain, who didn’t much like Naples, was equally impressed and hit on the same simile: “It is Broadway repeated in every street, in every court, in every alley! Such masses, such throngs, such multitudes of hurrying, bustling, struggling humanity! We never saw the like of it, hardly even in New York.”

The energy and criminality have the same roots. Both grow out of centuries of foreign domination and the long, subversive struggle the Neapolitans waged against authority imposed on them by force. Unable to express themselves politically, they developed secret hand languages and secret criminal and political societies, as well as (literally) underground religious practices. And they did it all with good humor.

A few years ago, when the Italian government required all car drivers to wear safety belts, the Neapolitans quickly manufactured more than three million t-shirts with a picture of a seat belt on it. It was a classic Neapolitan response to orders from on high: anarchic, confrontational, but charming and witty at the same time. The Neapolitans’ skill in avoiding the regulators and tax collectors goes hand in hand with their spontaneity and creativity. A surprisingly high percentage of Italian philosophers, from St. Thomas Aquinas to Campanella, Vico, and Croce, have been Neapolitans; and 20th-century Italian culture is overwhelmingly Neapolitan, from Enrico Caruso to Sophia Loren (those movies starring Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia are taken from masterpieces of Neapolitan popular theater written by Eduardo De Filippo). And, of course, the single most successful culinary creation of all time—pizza—comes from Naples.

Big factories have not done well there, but businesses based on high style and elegance have become world-class enterprises. Some of the finest furniture in Italy—from inlaid marble desks and tables to magnificent carved wooden pieces—is made in Naples, and men’s fashion has reached its highest level (and certainly its highest prices) in Naples, from Marinella ties to the super-chic ateliers of Borrelli, Isaia, Attolini, Kiton, Barba, Rubinacci, and others. It may seem counter-intuitive that a city famed for mass misery should simultaneously be a world center of luxury men’s style, but the “Naples look” now dominates the top-of-the-line market throughout the Western world, from New York and San Francisco to Hong Kong, St. Petersburg, and Dubai.

In fact, the city’s fashion industry is booming, accounting for 34 percent of Neapolitan exports. There are some 5,422 enterprises producing clothing, leather, and shoes in and around Naples, and, according to the official statistics (undoubtedly understated), fashion exports in the year 2000 added up to €508 million. If you want to get a sense of this phenomenon, take a short trip to Nola, just outside the city, where you will find the so-called “wholesale city,” covering a million square meters. The window displays go on for more than three and a half miles, and annual sales are in the area of €4 billion.

Everyone knows that the shows and shops in Milan are where people go to see top fashion, but many are surprised to discover that some of the most prized designers and producers either live and work in Naples, or came from it. Even people who closely follow the trends in Italian fashion would be amazed to learn that Salvatore Feragamo, the top shoe manufacturer, is a Neapolitan enterprise transplanted to Florence by way of Southern California. The founder, Don Salvatore, migrated from Naples to the United States in 1914 and opened a shoe store in Hollywood where he made—entirely by hand, of course—unique shoes for the likes of Gloria Swanson. He returned to Italy in 1927 and set up shop in Florence, where the family has counted Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret among its elite customers.

But the contemporary stars of Neapolitan fashion are outspokenly, ostentatiously representative of their city, and they and their compatriots take considerable satisfaction from the man-bites-dog quality of their success story. And it’s a hell of a success.

One of my favorite blogs, recently ran a story called “Fat Bald Man, NYC,” that tells you a lot about Neapolitan fashion and the iconic status it has achieved:

"So I see this guy racing down Fifth Ave and he turns the corner at Abercrombie, I get his attention and ask to take his photo for my fashion blog. Without a second’s hesitation he says to me in very serious Ital-English ‘Not me, I’m a bald fat man!!’ I’m a very positive person, so the first thing out of my mouth was ‘No, you’re not.....uhm......so?’

"We stand there looking at each other for a moment and finally I say, ‘But you look so Italian!’ That got him.

"What a perfect example of Neapolitan style—the right shoes, the right shirt, a great tie and a very nice Spring-ish shade of blue sportcoat. I asked where he got the jacket and with a mix of pride and nonchalance he says, ‘I have my tailor in Naples do it for me.’

"These are the kind of guys that inspire me...."

The inspiration comes from the fact that almost all garments from the leading Neapolitan companies are handmade. No two are exactly the same, even those that are “ready-to-wear” rather than custom-tailored. Moreover, there are three basic components of Neapolitan sartorial elegance that make these clothes special:

First, the quality of the fabrics. With rare exceptions, the fabrics are manufactured by select British and Italian mills and are unique to the Neapolitan tailors. The wool typically comes from New Zealand, where Merino lambs produce an unusually fine fiber which, in turn, is woven into very soft and flexible wool. The cotton is of the highest quality, as is the cashmere that is often blended into both summer and winter garments.

Jackets are softer and more closely shaped to the natural slope of the back, neck, and shoulders than other styles.

Clothes made from such fabrics are extraordinarily comfortable, and really do feel like a “second skin.”

This feel is further enhanced by the second component: the internal architecture, especially inside the jackets. A very soft canvas chest-liner enables the jacket to move easily and still maintain its elegant design. It’s costly both because it is cut and stitched by hand and because the preparation of the canvas takes time and attention. This style is a distinct departure from Saville Row clothes, which are more rigid. The other Neapolitan stylistic innovation is a paucity of padding. Jackets are softer and more closely shaped to the natural slope of the back, neck, and shoulders than other styles. This approach, too, gives customers a greater sense of freedom and naturalness, and, while most of the suits and jackets you find in the United States have at least some padding, it is still minimal when compared to domestic products, or to British or continental clothes.

The third element, about which there is a surprisingly abundant literature, is the jacket shoulder. Neapolitan shoulders are set higher than others, and the sleeve is deliberately cut larger than the shoulder hole. In order to make the sleeve fit properly into the jacket body, some of the fabric has to be bunched and carefully sewn, which produces a puckering effect that many savants will tell you is a sure sign of a genuine Neapolitan product. It’s not quite true; most custom-made Neapolitan suits have that shoulder, but you certainly don’t find it on all the ready-to-wear merchandise. The shoulder construction works best when it is made for a specific shoulder, not a particular size. (If you want to know even more, the Internet has a wealth of information, and the best place to start is <www.askandyaboutclothes.com>, where you will find an article by Nicholas Antongiavanni appropriately entitled, “The Neapolitan Shoulder Explained.” It comes complete with detailed diagrams of how that tricky shoulder is made.)

It is not intuitively obvious that there are many men in this world who will enthusiastically pay $5,000 or $6,000 for a jacket and a pair of pants, no matter how elegantly crafted or how magnificent the fabric.

Fashion writers are sometimes at a loss for superlatives when they describe Neapolitan style. “I ponder the strange confluence of substance and accident,” wrote Jo Durden-Smith for the upscale American Express magazine Departures. “The weather; the dramatic geography; the Baroque sensibility; the English visitors; the Norman, German, French, Spanish, and conquerors; the royal courts; the street theater; the love of display; the tradition of craftsmanship—that has contrived to produce Neapolitan sartoria.”

I don’t quite see the city’s long history incarnated in a Finamore shirt or one of Cesare Attolini’s suits. I certainly see the Neapolitans’ great lair and sense of elegance, along with at least two other important elements common to all creative people, and particularly refined (and often overlooked) among successful Neapolitans: ruthlessness and arrogance.

If you talk to these captains of style, you will find that they are masters of marketing, superb salesmen, and utterly disdainful of their competition. Ciro Paone, the owner/creator of Kiton, is merciless when he talks about the other masters of Neapolitan style, proclaiming his own clothes more elegant, and more virile. His career bespeaks a toughness of mind and spirit that is common to all captains of industry. Before he came on the scene, the family business was to import the best British fabrics and sell them to the finest tailors in Naples. Ciro realized in the mid-1950s that there was more money—much more—to be made from selling suits than from peddling fabric, and he transformed the family business. He hired some of the best tailors to work for him, organized a school for young tailors, and created a total environment: a school for employees’ children and a restaurant for his employees, to whom he paid more money than they were likely to make on their own.

Neapolitan style evolved from classic British clothes, and indeed some of the most famous fashion houses in Naples long presented themselves as the best sources of Saville Row suits, shirts, and ties. Rubinacci, for example, has long been known as “London House,” and Marinella’s ties are still presented as quintessentially British. But those who can afford the very best now covet Neapolitan clothes.

At Kiton’s facility, the only “machines” in use are needles, thimbles, and shears.

It is not intuitively obvious that there are many men in this world who will enthusiastically pay $5,000 or $6,000 for a jacket and a pair of pants, no matter how elegantly crafted or how magnificent the fabric. But Ciro Paone and the others know better. Ciro didn’t start by making nice suits, building up a clientele, and gradually raising prices. From the very beginning, Kiton (named after the Greek robe, the chiton) charged top lira—more, in fact, than you would expect to pay for custom-made suits (Kiton clothes are entirely handmade, but they are rarely made to order). Paone now employs more than 300 tailors. As you would expect, he’s expanding the line: there are now handmade Kiton shoes, ties, and shirts, along with perfume and women’s clothes. Paone even gobbled up a less pricy label, Sartorio.

Kiton’s facility—it would be wrong to call it a “factory,” since everyone who works there is an artisan, and the only “machines” in use are needles, thimbles, and shears—is located in an ugly industrial suburb, and is as striking as the clothes that come out of it. The Kiton building is done in cream and beige marble, and the spacious lobby is a kind of fashion museum, where you can see suits, tuxedos, shoes, and boots worn by past royalty and aristocracy. It is all done with the same single-minded attention to detail and elegance that characterizes the firm in everything it does.

The Neapolitans are now omnipresent in the luxury market.

When I was last there, Paone was headed for Shanghai, Hong Kong, and St. Petersburg, before stopping by his new store in Manhattan in the former headquarters of the Banco di Napoli. And, like any ruthless CEO, he’s diversifying. And the others are right there with Kiton. Rubinacci’s scarves, for example, may well be the most beautiful in the world, putting even Hermès to shame.

The Neapolitans are now omnipresent in the luxury market. Rubinacci (which can legitimately claim to have invented the Neapolitan look), Isaia, Borrelli, and Attolini (whose founding father, Cesare, learned his craft working for Rubinacci) have successfully entered the American market through the penthouse. Their products sell at places like Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus; Borrelli and Kiton have opened their own stores in midtown Manhattan; and the malls of the Emirates are now carrying the best Neapolitan threads.

The ultimate symbol of Neapolitan success is also a striking turnabout. Rubinacci, which had “London House” engraved on its store in Via Filangieri in Naples, is now opening a big new shop on Mount Street in the heart of London’s fashion neighborhood. Its name is “Rubinacci Napoli,” and Mariano Rubinacci happily declares, “My ambition is to bring a part of my Naples, with all its emotions and traditions, to the heart of London. I want to create a perfect union between the two cities, which have such different souls yet such similar styles.”

The Rubinacci family used to trade in rare Indian silk a century ago, but that market dried up with the Great Depression, and Rubinacci’s father decided to become a custom tailor, or, as he termed it, a “personal stylist.” Starting in the thirties, the Rubinaccis began the creation of what we now call Neapolitan style. Today, Rubinacci, like the other luxury labels, has a worldwide empire.

It’s an amazing achievement, especially when you consider the prices. Kiton suits—off the rack—average around $5,000, and you can easily find a vicuna suit for more than twice as much. Attolini and Rubinacci are in the same stratospheric range, with Isaia and Borrelli marginally more affordable (roughly $3,000 a suit). Shirts, and even a pair of gloves, run in the $500 range. Even on eBay, where Chinese knockoffs are sometimes hard to distinguish from the real McCoy, “gently used” Kitons are generally over $2,000 apiece.

The Neapolitan fashion master that perhaps best fits the stereotype is the celebrated necktie boutique Marinella, now in its third generation. The ties are properly legendary and very British, although Marinella often shows a sense of humor you don’t find on Saville Row or Jermyn Street, as when he produced dark blue ties with the emblem of each country competing in the World Cup, or when he made a tie for former Prime Minister Berlusconi with a lucky “horn” (the universal Italian symbol for good luck) on it. But Marinella’s fame is equally based on charm; the family’s attentiveness to its customers’ needs and wishes borders on the miraculous. The store, located at the beginning of the seaside Chiaia gardens, opens at seven o’clock, so you can pick up a new tie on the way to the office in the event yours got a stain from your morning coffee. During the Christmas season, when customers line up waiting to get in to the tiny (20 square meters) shop, Maurizio Marinella, the grandson of the founder, brings them coffee, hot chocolate, and even sfogliatelle, the delicious ricotta-filled pastries with which lucky Neapolitans traditionally start their day.

One day early last December, I stopped by to purchase some holiday presents, but when I tried to pay with my credit card, it was quickly rejected by the machine. The salesman gave me a sympathetic smile, remarked that machines often make mistakes, and suggested I come by later. “No, it’s not so simple,” I said to him. “Can I wait here to be arrested?”

“Don’t be silly, you’re not going to be arrested. You haven’t done anything.”

“Yes,” I said. “I am certainly going to be arrested, because it’s not just your ties that I can’t pay for. I can’t pay the hotel, I can’t pay for my train ticket, and eventually they will arrest me. This is a nice place, and you are nice people. Can I just wait here?”

He laughed, and gave me a telephone to call the credit card people. When I got through to a living person, she immediately asked me if my credit card had been rejected.

“How did you know?”

“Because,” she grimly informed me, “we have a computer glitch, and at this moment all the Visas and all the MasterCards, all over the world, are being rejected.”

I told the Marinella salesman that it wasn’t my card at all. It was only the end of the global economy, and I got coffee for both of us. By the afternoon, the global economy was safe again, and I bought the ties. That kind of consideration makes for customer loyalty.

Marinella’s fame was largely limited to southern Italy until the late 1980s, when the Italian president, Francesco Cossiga, a Sardinian, acted as a traveling salesman, giving Marinella ties to his counterparts on state visits all over the world. Then, at the G7 meeting in Naples in 1994, each visiting head of state was given half a dozen of Marinella’s finest, and even Bill Clinton started ordering his ties from the Naples shop.

Although the family has not yielded to the many invitations to spread around the world, Marinella has opened a showroom in Milan and sells to some of the finest men’s stores in New York, Europe, and Japan.

“See Naples and die,” a quotation attributed to wits from Virgil to Goethe, admonishes travelers to absorb the beauty of the setting and the drama of the city itself. But today, the world’s elite is more likely to say, “See Naples and buy.”

Michael Ledeen is the Freedom Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He was a visiting professor of history at the University of Rome during the 1970s and a special adviser to the Secretary of State during the 1980s. He is the author of 17 books, including “D’Annunzio at Fiume” and “Machiavelli on Modern Leadership.” His book on Naples, “Virgil’s Golden Egg,” will be published next year.

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