An unexpected encounter with Sartoria

The landlord of the shared house I lived in in Naples was an Italian in his 30s or 40s who spoke English.

My landlord is very kind and always says to me, "Please let me know if you have any problems ."


The other day, while we were chatting, the landlord asked me, "What do you do for a living?" When I told him I worked as a tailor, he told me that his grandmother had originally been a tailor.

From this casual conversation, it turned out that the landlord had actually been looking for a Neapolitan tailor for Arakawa.
I decided to meet Salto, who had been introduced to me, on my day off.

The landlord introduced me to a woman named Anna.

Anna happens to live near where we live now and was a former student at Kiton's school.

We had a lot in common, we had a lively conversation, and we quickly became friends.

I was asked if I would like to work at the tailor shop where Anna works, so I decided to accept.

That sartoria was "Sartoria volpe" .

Sartoria volpe

When I go to work at Sartoria Volpe, I contact Anna on the morning and she comes to pick me up on her motorbike.

It took about an hour to walk there, so I was very grateful for the assistance. (But sometimes I would go for a walk and walk to the site.)

On my first day at work, I was greeted by the owner, Giovanni Volpe .

He asked me "Do you want croissants and coffee?" which made me very happy.

After that, he would ask me every time he came to work, so it became a standard breakfast for me on days when I went to Sartoria Volpe.


There are many tailors in their 20s working here.

Seeing the young craftsmen working happily, Arakawa was also excited.

"Alessandro is a wild man. There are many different types of young craftsmen ."

Technical guidance beyond language barriers

I was told to start by making one piece, so I got started right away.

In fact, right in front of the store is the headquarters of Caccioppoli , a famous fabric merchant in Japan . I decided to get some fabric there and make the dress .

I ended up learning the techniques from Roberto .

Roberto is a very experienced grandfather who has a poor pronunciation and even the other Italians who work with him can't understand what he's saying.

First of all, he couldn't speak English, and Arakawa, who still couldn't understand Italian perfectly, understood the instructions from Roberto's gestures.

Roberto and Arakawa communicate with each other without the use of words.
The other members found this very strange and amusing.

Afterwards, our friends and I joked that the reason we couldn't understand what Roberto was saying was because he was speaking Japanese!

"Roberto works all day, from morning to night. His smile is also charming."

A taste of welcome

On my first day at work, they held a small welcome party for me.

The location is a restaurant deep in the mountains.

It was a beautiful place, located next to a lake in the woods .
Due to its location, it seems like it's a local restaurant that doesn't get many tourists. Of course, the food was delicious.

I was especially impressed with the crayfish (scampi) pasta.
In Japan, when we hear the word "crayfish," we don't really think of it as something we want to eat, but it actually refers to freshwater shrimp.
It is served in its original form on top of a bed of tomato-based pasta.
This was so delicious that it became one of my favorite dishes to eat whenever I visited Italy.

During conversations at the welcome party, we learned that Arakawa was the first place where Japanese craftsmen had come to work.

I was very happy that they welcomed me so warmly despite my unexpected visit.

So I ended up working at Kiton during the week and at Sartoria Cuomo or Sartoria Volpe on weekends .

Continue.

(This story is from around 2016.)