No posthumous tribute, no restored films and yet Marcello Mastroianni is back in Cannes! In Christophe Honoré's Marcello Mio, festival-goers will recognize the Italian actor, aptly played by his own daughter, Chiara Mastroianni, who surprises those around her by imitating her father: the felt hat, the glasses, the suit and tie paired with a white shirt whose collar turns up slightly at the edges.

All these elements, dissected by dozens of sites specializing in men's style, are present in the film in competition, scheduled for release on May 22. Behind the scenes, it was Chanel who, through discreet sponsorship, contributed to the funding of this feature film. But connoisseurs know that, from La Dolce Vita (1960) to 8 ½ (1963), the original elaboration of this silhouette owes much to the Roman tailor Brioni.

While French couturiers also managed to create unforgettable images by turning into costume designers, it was above all thanks to the actresses who wore their garments. From Audrey Hepburn in a Givenchy evening gown in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) to Catherine Deneuve in Yves Saint Laurent in Belle de Jour (1967), not forgetting Mireille Darc and her plunging halter dress by Guy Laroche in Le Retour du Grand Blond (The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe, 1972). But in Italy and beyond, it's the image of one man, Marcello Mastroianni, that made a lasting impression, dressed in suits with 3,000 stitches whose uniqueness only insiders understand – here the precise structure of the shoulder, there a barchetta (rounded) patch pocket.

Excellent word-of-mouth

Since its launch in 1945 in Rome by Nazareno Fonticoli and Gaetano Savini, an expert tailor and a born salesman, Brioni has been a success story. Post-war effervescence, streets crowded with Vespas and the reopening of Cinecittà studios in 1948 earned the Italian capital the nickname "Hollywood on the Tiber." Thanks to excellent word-of-mouth, Brioni saw customers such as Anthony Quinn, Gary Cooper, Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda and Clark Gable flock to its boutique-atelier, becoming "the tailor of the Americans," as Gentlemen's Quarterly (renamed GQ in 1967) reported in November 1959.

But it was Federico Fellini's 1960 Palme d'Or winner La Dolce Vita that became his best calling card. The hero, a disillusioned journalist nicknamed "Paparazzo" and played by Mastroianni, parades in Brioni: a black wool and silk suit getting wet in the Trevi Fountain alongside Anita Ekberg and a final suit of white cotton gabardine on the beach at Fregene. The impact was phenomenal. "In all of Italy's major cities, it attracts huge crowds. All attendance records are broken! In Rome (...), people queue up for hours to see it. This hasn't happened since the war," noted a Le Monde correspondent on the film's release.

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