Sartoria Litrico Atelier has moved to a new location, in Via Michele Mercati n. 35, in the Parioli district of Rome. It is an important announcement not only because it brings us even closer to our customers, but above all, because it brings us back a few steps from where the whole history of Sartoria Litrico began, more than seventy years ago, back in 1951.

A few steps from that Via Sicilia 51 which became the reference point for men’s fashion over the years. We want to retrace its history with the words that our founder, Angelo Litrico, shared with a journalist from the Tribuna del Mezzogiorno in 1966.

«More than ten years ago, in July, I went to spend a Sunday in Taormina. I was loitering in the streets without a penny in my pocket when a lady approached me: “Young man – she said – can you show me the station?“. I had nothing to do and offered to accompany her. Along the way, I learned that the lady was from Rome and she was going, secretly, on a pilgrimage to the Madonna of Pompei. Secretly because her husband, a convinced atheist, had forbidden her to profess her faith. “I told my husband that I would stay in Sicily, instead I’m going to Pompei” the lady confided to me, and added: “I’ve have a return ticket to Rome from Sicily that I don’t need anymore, if you want I can give it to you“».

When he had the ticket in his pocket, Litrico wrote a line home and ran straight to Messina, where he took the ferry to the continent.

«I had never moved from Catania and when I arrived in Rome I felt like a wet chick. I was hungry, I didn’t have a penny, and I was afraid of everyone. I ended up in Via Sicilia, and I decided to stop there. That name – Via Sicilia – made me feel less alone. I rented an attic and immediately wrote to my grandmother who sent me a thousand lire».

He started to work in a tailor’s shop located in Via Sicilia. Angelo Litrico began his life as an emigrant here, in which everything he earned was put aside to open his shop one day. In the nearby Via Veneto lived a Sicilian fellow countryman from Palermo who one day invited him to the Opera House. «But I was needed a tuxedo – Litrico continues to tell in the article – so I decided to make it myself starting from a green piece of fabric and, kneeling on the ground in my attic, I cut and sewed it. At the theater, I was dazed by all that elegance: actresses, ambassadors, businessmen. I couldn’t help but think back to my hut in Sicily, and to my father who pulled his poor nets every day. During the intermission, two gentlemen approached me, asking me who had sewed the tuxedo I was wearing. They were Rossano Brazzi and Vittorio Gassman. I gave him the address of the shop in Via Sicilia and the next day, at 4.00 pm, Brazzi showed up at the door. He found out that I was the tailor and ordered me one like it. I went mad to find a green remnant, but in the end, I gave Brazzi his tuxedo as requested and he ordered me another eight. I have not stopped since then».

And the first step was to take over that shop in Via Sicilia 51 from which he had started.

For us, it is a return to the origins that excites us. And it coincides with another change: Sartoria Litrico becomes a benefit company, changing the company name to SARTORIA LITRICO S.r.l. SB. This means that, for our corporate vocation, all the activities that we will carry out from today will also be to pursue purposes of common benefit, officially operating in a responsible, sustainable, and transparent way, towards people, communities, territories and the environment, cultural and social assets and activities, organizations and associations, and other stakeholders.

Available for download our official communication.