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More than 10 years ago, Isaia brought Antonio Ciongoli on to head their brand new clothing label Eidos Napoli. Ciongoli’s first collection, “This Is Rome,” launched in Spring/Summer 2014, being sold through many of Isaia’s network of wholesale retail accounts in the United States including department store Bloomingdale’s, then later Saks and Nordstrom, and well-regarded small shop No Man Walks Alone.
Ciongoli built a cult following for the brand (guilty!) with his unrivaled eye for interesting, textured fabrics cut in flattering silhouettes at a price point that was hard to believe was coming out of Naples. But what followed was 5 years of problem after problem for Eidos. Manufacturing problems, sizing inconsistencies, the promise of MTM being cut short, delivery woes and the winds of fashion changing all led to Ciongoli leaving in 2017. (Read my response to that news at the time here).
But when it was cut properly, man was it good. Most of the tailored jackets in my wardrobe are still Eidos, and are still my favorite ones. Ciongoli ran up against the marketplace’s shift from the tailoring-centric “#menswear” movement that was still prevalent when Eidos launched into the hype-sneaker/streetwear trend, and in response took the brand in more casual directions while still trying to keep true to its roots. (Read my thoughts on his second-to-last collection that heavily incorporated Indian themes here). Only the first three seasons—SS14, AW14 and SS15—were centered around tailoring. The rest incorporated it, but emphasized knitwear, outerwear and sportswear in the lookbooks and presentations.
After Ciongoli left in 2017, Isaia named a new creative director in Simon Spurr. He designed 1 or 2 seasons before departing, after which Michael Handis was named creative director. He designed one season, and then the pandemic caused Isaia to end Eidos entirely. I actually don’t think they even produced his first seasonal collection. (Read my thoughts on the official end of Eidos here).
Anyway, all this is to say that in 2024, Eidos from the Antonio era is still worth buying if you can find it. After he left, the brand lost most of what made it special, except for two small exceptions (as noted below). Here’s my guide, including information about different tailored jacket models, where to look for it, and what to avoid. This should help you figure out what you’re looking at when you’ve found something you like on eBay.
Where to buy Eidos in 2024
Eidos Label Identification
A quick note before we begin: To tell whether an Eidos garment was made during Antonio’s run or after he left, you can look at the label. Antonio changed it once while he was there, including dropping “Napoli” from the name (so it became just Eidos), then it changed again after he left.
Tailored Jacket and Trouser Models
Original medium-lapel models
Eidos launched with three blazer / suit models. Over time that number ballooned to around 7. It was hard to keep track of. Fear not, here’s a rundown.
There are some universal characteristics of all Eidos jackets (unless noted): They all feature a 3-roll-2 front closure and dual rear vents. All single-breasted models feature a characteristic arc-shaped lapel (where the shape of the lapel curves inward slightly), no matter what width it is. They also all feature some form of spalla camicia shoulder construction (though some have some roping and some have some padding, as noted below).
Lavato—This was a short-lived jacket model that was entirely unconstructed (that is, no canvassing in the chest or padding in the shoulders). It was cut a little shorter and was usually garment washed (hence the name, which means “wash” in Italian). It was only available the first couple seasons or so.
Lavato size advice: Take your normal size (but of course double check the measurements given).
Tenero—This was the definitive “sportcoat” model, at least as Antonio envisioned it originally. But it was used for suits as well as blazers/odd jackets/sportcoats. It has a lightweight full canvas construction, with no additional padding in the shoulders. The shoulder is spalla camicia, but with a little roping to it (so not an entirely bald sleevehead look). The length is longer than Lavato, but still fairly short if you’re a “classic menswear” guy.
Tenero size advice: Check the measurements. Some seasons it fit true-to-size, and some seasons it fit one size small. I have owned Tenero jackets that fit me well in my normal size and up to two sizes bigger (which fit after alterations to slim it down).
Primo—This was technically never supposed to be available for sale; Ciongoli designed this only as a jacket model to use for samples for models to wear in photo shoots. It’s designed the same as the Tenero—same width lapels, same lightweight construction—but slimmer. The idea being it would look as intended on models, who tend to be slim, without having to get alterations. I own two jackets in Primo.
Primo sizing advice: Check the measurements given. I own a Primo in my normal size and it fits well, but I also own one size up and it fits well.
Tipo—This was the “suit” model, or at least how it was originally intended. But it was used for sportcoats as well as suits. It’s a little longer than the Tenero. It has a small amount of padding in the shoulder (Similar to what I recall the Armoury Model 1 has, if you’ve ever tried that). But otherwise it had a very similar overall look to Tenero.
Tipo size advice: Take your normal size (but of course double check the measurements given).
At some point in 2016 or so, Bloomingdale’s (their biggest account), requested that Antonio make some changes to his jacket cut based on feedback from sales associates and customers. They basically asked to make it more normal (i.e. closer to Isaia’s typical cut) for customers unaccustomed to Neapolitan tailoring (3-roll-2 buttoning point, for instance). What resulted is…
Balthazar—The only 2-button jacket Antonio made. It’s based on the Tipo cut, meaning it has slightly padded shoulders. It also has a slightly bellied lapel (the opposite of the inward-curving arc that was his signature on every other jacket he sold). And he shortened the length compared to Tipo (by 1cm IIRC). Bloomingdale’s is the only retailer to carry this model.
Basic tailored trouser cut:
UAB—This was the basic, universal tailored trouser he made. It was the typical trouser that you got with a suit, and which was sold as odd trousers, throughout the entire run of Eidos. Mid-low rise, with a slim-straight cut (but enough room in the knee to kneel down).
UAB size advice: Take your normal size (but of course double check the measurements given).
Wide-lapel models
In his second season for the brand, AW14 (“Faces of Firenze”), Antonio introduced a new cut inspired by Florentine tailors such as Liverano, whose jackets have a beautiful, rounded silhouette. It has no shoulder padding (just the lightweight canvas extending up through the shoulder) and that same slightly roped (con rollino) spalla camicia shoulder construction. It also included a new trouser cut with double forward pleats. Both were called…
Lorenzo jacket—This ran for only one season. It’s a somewhat less-than-ideal cut for many guys on account of its dramatically swept-away front quarters (the round front underneath the buttons). It tends to accentuate the hips. But if you wear it open, that’s not something very noticeable. I own two Lorenzo jackets and they’re two of my favorites. But when I button it up, it looks best with higher-rise trousers.
Lorenzo jacket size advice: Take your normal size (but of course double check the measurements given).
Lorenzo trouser—In 2014, these were pretty ahead of their time. With a high rise (like 12 inch rise on a size 36US/52EU) and double forward pleats, these were not messing around. However, they still dramatically tapered down to have a slim cuff opening. On the size 36/52 I owned, the cuff opening was 15.5” or so.
Lorenzo trouser size advice—Take your normal size (but of course double check the measurements given).
After running for just one season, Antonio retired the Lorenzo jacket cut, but tweaked it slightly for SS2015 and called the new version the Ciro; he also introduced new flat-front high-rise trousers called Sal.
Ciro—For Ciro, Antonio re-designed Lorenzo’s swept-away front quarters to make them more closed and less aggressive. Otherwise, it has the same lightweight canvas and no shoulder padding as seen on the Lorenzo and Tenero models.
Ciro size advice: Take your normal size (but of course double check the measurements given).
NMWA—Sort of separately from the Ciro redesign process, owner of retailer No Man Walks Alone, Greg Lellouche, worked with Antonio to tweak the Lorenzo jacket, resulting in a NMWA-exclusive cut for SS15. They closed up those quarters, same as the Ciro, but also lengthened the jacket overall (by around 1cm IIRC), and lowered the buttoning point. The first season of the NMWA cut looks very, very similar to the Ciro (see the brown jacket below). After that, the Isaia factories cut the NMWA jacket differently almost every season, distorting the pattern more and more, until it became almost unrecognizable. At some points they even added shoulder padding. None of those changes were directed by Antonio or requested by Greg. Nonetheless, the NMWA cut is a solid aesthetic, no matter what season (even the ones with some padding), and is often the cut most people associate with Eidos because they tended to carry the best fabrics of each collection.
After Antonio left, Isaia valued NMWA as a retail client of theirs and agreed to continue making their exclusive cut for two more seasons. So even if you find a NMWA cut jacket with the Spurr-era white label, it’s still the same cut as before.
NMWA size advice: Take your normal size (but of course double check the measurements given).
Sal trousers—Same high rise as the Lorenzo trouser, but flat-front.
Sal trouser size advice: Take your normal size (but of course double check the measurements given).
The streetwear-adjacent unstructured model
Sometime around 2016 or 2017, Antonio introduced a new completely unstructured jacket cut that would be easier to wear with the more casual clothes he was interested in at the time. It was different from Lavato entirely (which by this point had been long since discontinued). It was called…
Augusto—Totally unstructured, with no canvassing in the chest or shoulders. It also has no vents. This was the cut Antonio featured most prominently in collections until the end of his tenure. It was never really made to be a suit, although he often did run “separates” in this cut alongside more casual pants (not the UAB tailored trouser).
Augusto size advice: Take your normal size (but of course double check the measurements given).
Eidos Button-Up Shirting
Marcus cutaway collar shirt model—Made both as dress shirt and a sport shirt, the Marcus had a really cool, large, wide spread collar with a tall collar band. As a dress shirt, it had a lightweight fused lining in the collar and cuffs. The dress shirts were super underrated, though their retail pricing was pretty prohibitively high, and sadly they became harder to find as the first few seasons passed since they didn’t sell through a ton at the stores that carried them. The sport shirts carried on for much longer, but the make of those was all over the place in terms of sizing and fit. The sport shirts had the same collar shape, but with no lining at all in collar or cuffs. The cut of the sport shirts were weird and it wasn’t clear to me the reason. That said, they can still look super good when they fit well (I have a few really great Marcus sport shirts). The biggest thing was they tended to be short in the body and have super long sleeves. The sleeves can be rolled or shortened by a tailor, so that wasn’t a huge deal; but the body length either works for you or it doesn’t. On me, they’re just the right length to do a jaunty “French” tuck in the front and it looks good. YMMV.
Marcus shirt sizing advice: Look at the measurements. They differed from season to season. I own Marcus dress shirts in 3 different sizes that each fit me well. For the sport shirts, they were not consistently
Aldo button-down—The Aldo model button-down shirt was great. Ciongoli said he copied a 1950s OCBD of his dad’s (who dressed elegantly in a very Ivy kind of way as Ciongoli described). Unlined, with the button at the back of the collar. It has a great collar roll, and looks good with a tie or without. I believe the Aldo was only made as a sport shirt.
Aldo shirt sizing advice: Same as Marcus: Check the measurements. It had all the same bizarre proclivities as the Marcus sport shirts.
Outerwear
Overcoats
Palermo—This was the classic overcoat design and more or less lasted the whole tenure of Antonio as far as I recall. Normal width lapels, single back vent, 3-button front. Your typical overcoat.
Palermo sizing advice: Size up, but double check the measurements given. I never owned one of these but my perception based on what others said was that it fit pretty slim.
Miscellaneous—Chiaia, Shay, Aliano, Robe coat, Ulster coat, etc.
It’s a grab bag for all the various coat models released over the years. Lots of amazing outerwear, including some of the best-looking double-breasted coats I’ve ever encountered (in cut but also in fabric selection). The Chiaia (pictured below in gray herringbone) is my favorite coat ever, and I have an entire post dedicated to finding similar coats out there by other brands.
Advice for Eidos outerwear: Check the measurements is all I can say. There are so many made across so many seasons (where the cut by the factory might have been different from one to the next), it’s safer just to rely on measurements. I’ll explicitly say this based on my experience, though: the Chiaia fits true to size.
Short coats
Ragosta field jacket—This was one of the perennial pieces that Antonio made part of every collection until the end. It’s a field jacket, but was usually made in really cool tailoring-friendly fabrics, and designed without buttons on the pocket flaps. It looked great on its own, or worn over a sportcoat/blazer.
Ragosta sizing advice: Take your normal size (but of course double check the measurements). In the first year or two, it seemed possible to size down if you wanted to wear it alone (not over a tailored jacket). And then there was a point sometime around 2016 where Antonio had the factory stop lining the sleeves in order to address a shortcoming with their process that resulted in a shoulder that was more squared off than he intended for the design. At that point, it became true to size. How can you tell the difference? Measurements (but also sleeve lining).
Maremmara Hunting jacket—Another perennial, this was based on a type of Florentine jacket used to hunt pheasants. Toward the last season or two, he was rendering these in really cool fabrics (like a water-repellant cotton lined with shearling).
Maremara sizing advice: Take your normal size (but of course double check measurements given)
Miscellaneous—Peacoats, etc. Lots of cool coats (like the navy boucle peacoat he wore in his feature for Mr Porter).
General Eidos sportswear outerwear sizing advice: Check the measurements
Eidos Sweaters
This category is full of amazing knitwear. Ciongoli is never better as a designer than when he’s designing sweaters. From the Thompson shawl collar belted cardigan of FW16 to the latticework mockneck of FW14 to the toggle-front cardigan from SS15, there are some seriously cool pieces to be found. As time went on, they became a little looser and relaxed in silhouette as his designs embodied his ethos of “designing the comfort food of clothing.” But they’re still within the Eidos aesthetic, not in that skater-tastic oversized silhouette he’s pushing at 18East.
Eidos sweater sizing advice: Check measurements. Early sweaters from, say, before SS16, are going to fit slim; after that they loosen up.
Eidos sportswear
Lupo polo—One of Ciongoli’s enduring contributions to the world of menswear is his single-button polo shirt design called the Lupo. His was a riff on the one-piece collar polos worn by Marcello Mastroianni in the mid-century, as well as Loro Piana’s own one-piece collar polo. Other makers make one-piece collar polos (like G. Inglese), but Ciongoli’s particular design with its wide spread collar shape, applied placket and particular button placement has been so popular, it’s been copied by everybody from Simon Crompton to Luxire. When it was made well, it was one of the all-time great things Eidos made. But as is the case with so much of Eidos, the Lupo suffered from wildly varying quality season to season. Thin fabrics that were prone to tear some seasons, fit swinging from loose to tight, it was frustrating to buy one that was amazing one season, then buy the same size a few seasons later to find it was a size too small. The best-executed season was FW17’s “New York Blues”: it was made in LA instead of at Isaia’s factories in Italy, using 100% cotton pique. It was far better made than any other season, though the navy color from that season faded to purple, disappointingly. But there were many other good colors in that season.
[See this post for other makers that make polo shirts very similar to the Lupo polo in 2023]
When Antonio left, Eidos continued making and selling the Lupo polo. So even if you find one with the Spurr-era label, it’s the same as before.
Lupo sizing advice: Check the measurements.
This is by no means a definitive list of every single thing Eidos produced, but hopefully it is a useful guide. I’ll update this if I think of other things they made that I have experience with. And feel free to comment with your own Eidos product experiences, or to ask for info on something Eidos made.
(Help support this site! If you buy stuff through my links, your clicks and purchases earn me a commission from many of the retailers I feature, and it helps me sustain this site—as well as my menswear habit ;-) Thanks!)
Shop my clothing from this post and every other post on the Shop My Closet page. If you’re just getting into tailored menswear and want a single helpful guide to building a trend-proof wardrobe, buy my eBook. It doesn’t cost that much and covers wardrobe essentials for any guy who wants to look cool, feel cool and make a good impression. Formatted for your phone or computer/iPad so it’s not annoying to read, and it’s full of pretty pictures, not just boring prose. Buy it here.
This post was originally published December 2021.
Thanks for this run down. Sorry if this is common knowledge, but I purchased Tipo suit on eBay a few years and after reading this post was interested to learn if they changed it at all in different seasons. Also, is it possible to figure out what season a suit was made in? Thanks so much and happy new year.
Tipo
It just occurred to me that the info you describe with the labels is more important than the specific season, right? I did check the label in my suit, which is the original brown one, which might tell me all i need to know? Sorry for any trouble. And thanks for the great blog.
Joel, to answer your original question: Tipo never changed and was actually very consistent in how it was produced (i.e. no wild swings from being true-to-size to one-size-small like the Tenero).
And yes, the label info I added yesterday should help you ascertain what era it was made in. As for determining what season something was made in, that would only be helpful in terms of knowing how things ran that particular season (were the shirts big? did the pants have a big waist but slim thighs? etc.), which would be super hard to reconstruct at this point. So that’s why following measurements is your best bet.
Anyway, hope the Tipo suit is serving you well! In 2020, right before the pandemic, the local Saks Off Fifth was closing down here in Nashville. They had a ton of high-end tailoring from brands that you’d never normally see at that location—clearance stuff from other stores that they shipped in for the close-out sale. They told me they’d be getting more such shipments as the final closing date approached (it was to be in April that year), and I got really excited because they already had a number of Eidos things on the racks even then (though nothing at that point that was my size). If nothing else, I filled out a form for them to let me know when it was all said and done and I’d buy the Eidos hangers.
But alas the pandemic essentially shut the store down 6 weeks early, and it was impossible to even go in to see what was there before the shut-down. If I had been able to, perhaps I could’ve scored a sweet Tipo suit myself.
Thanks, Mitchell. That is helpful information. Bummer about missing the Saks shipments!
Commenting on an old post here, but are you familiar with an Eidos sportcoat model named Biga? That’s at least the name on the tag. It’s either early in Antonio’s tenure, or before his time as it has the Eidos Napoli logo with the big O.
I think it’s before Ciongoli’s time. I think Eidos had 1 season before he took the reins, maybe 2.
At least twice a year I am still searching for a navy Ragosta jacket. Still no luck :(
Thanks for the detailed overview of Eidos here! It’s very helpful.
I’ve seen some jackets with just “eidos” in lowercase letters (blue on black or navy background, and dark blue on white with the same font). Do you have any idea where that label fits in?
I have seen those too. Avoid them. I have no idea when those date from or if they’re related to the Eidos Antonio joined and made into the brand we love.