Canali's CEO Stefano Canali on art, in-house production and the jacket’s 'hidden architecture'

“Much of what makes a Canali jacket exceptional is concealed within it,” Stefano Canali, CEO of the Italian menswear house, told FashionUnited. That idea drives Under the Surface – Shaping the Unseen, a new project in which four contemporary artists, including Los Angeles-based ceramicist Brian Rochefort, respond to the “two hundred sartorial steps” behind the brand’s tailoring.

The international project puts Italian sartorial culture in dialogue with contemporary art through four original works: Rochefort in the United States, Diego Perrone in Italy, Lihuai Qian in China and Thukral & Tagra in India. It is being staged as four events taking place in Beijing, New York, Milan and Mumbai. At each event, the artwork is shown alongside a Canali jacket and a visual narrative by Italian artist and filmmaker Yuri Ancarani, who used film and photography to follow both the making of the jacket and the creation of each artwork.

A hidden architecture

The project started with the jacket, said Canali. “You feel it in the lightness, the way it follows your movements and retains its shape over time. Behind that apparent simplicity is a hidden architecture, built through two hundred sartorial steps.”

The concept ties into Inner Beauty, a principle Canali describes as “the belief that authentic value goes deeper than appearances.” Contemporary art offered a way to explore that idea beyond technical explanation. “By bringing the construction of a jacket into dialogue with an artist’s creative process, we invite people to discover the knowledge, research and sensitivity behind the finished form,” he said.

The hero piece is a cashmere and vicuña blazer from the brand’s FW26 collection.

Rochefort’s layered ceramics

For the New York chapter, Canali commissioned new vessel sculptures from Rochefort. He builds them from clays of different colours, which he prepares himself, and fires them repeatedly as layers of glaze, slip, pigment and glass build up.

“There is an extraordinary energy in Brian’s work,” said Canali. “His sculptures draw you in through colour and texture, but looking more closely reveals the depth of research behind them. What appears spontaneous develops through a complex sequence of building, breaking, reconfiguring and repeated firing. Each layer transforms what came before.”

Canali compared that process to the jacket, in which outer fabric, canvas and internal components must work together. “Brian’s ceramics and our jackets remain very different creations, what connects them is a profound knowledge of materials and the conviction that every stage of construction matters, including those that will no longer be immediately apparent.”

Cloe Piccoli curated the artists for Italy and the United States. She is an art critic, a professor of contemporary art at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and the recently appointed director of miart. Canali said the brand approached established artists for “the depth and relevance of their work” and gave them freedom to develop their own response. “Their works retain their artistic autonomy; they were never intended to illustrate a marketing message.”

The four cities represent the company’s key markets. “New York brings a global perspective and creative energy, in the country that is our largest market,” he said.

Keeping production in Italy

The tailoring behind the project is made entirely in Italy. “Keeping our production entirely in Italy, with 70% in our own facilities, gives us close oversight of those choices,” said Canali.

Few brands still keep most production in-house. For Canali, the reason is practical as well as cultural: “our ability to make is central to our identity.” He added: “A small adjustment to an internal component can change the way a jacket moves or sits on the body. Understanding that effect requires proximity to the process.”

Handing those skills to younger artisans takes time. “Some of the 200 sartorial steps we describe in this project take months of training to master,” he said.

Measuring durability

Canali has also set out to measure its impact through its CAre framework. The company assessed its environmental footprint at organisational and product level using the OEF and PEF methodologies, looking beyond its own operations at raw materials and logistics. “When you have worked in a certain way for generations, you know the care that goes into your products, but responsibility also requires measurement,” said Canali.

According to Canali, the products assessed, which represent 59 percent of production, achieved the highest durability benchmark on the measurement scale. “That gave us measurable evidence of something fundamental to our approach, namely the importance of construction in extending a garment’s life,” he said.

Independence and the next generation

Canali is family-owned, and its CEO was careful not to overstate the advantage. “I would be cautious about saying that others cannot do these things. What independence gives us is the freedom to choose our priorities and sustain them over time.”

That freedom lets the company invest in manufacturing, people and research “with a horizon that extends beyond an immediate return,” he said. “As the third generation, I am conscious of what we have inherited, but equally of what we will pass on.”

Canali does not see Under the Surface as a one-off. “Under the Surface goes to the heart of Canali: the knowledge, construction and care that give our garments their value,” he said. “In that sense, it cannot be a one-off. The project is a way of sharing something fundamental to who we are.”

Asked what he would like Canali to be known for in the next decade, he said: “For clothes that continue to earn their place in someone’s life, and for a company whose conduct deserves the same trust as its products.”