Domenico Spano, clothing maker to stars who found his own fame, dies at the age of 79

Domenico Spano, a New York clothing manufacturer who outfitted captains of industry and Hollywood stars, and whose own dandyish style made him a highly recognizable peacock on the city streets and on newspaper fashion pages, died on October 23 in Manhattan. He was 79.

His daughter Elisabeth Spano said he died in a hospital of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Mr. Spano, who went by the nickname Mimmo, was born in the Calabria region of southern Italy. But although he grew up in a country known for its illustrious fashion history, he made a name for himself in New York as a champion of classic American style, as epitomized by the timeless elegance of screen legends like Fred Astaire, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Cary Grant and Gary Cooper.

With his own striking outfits, done in colorful patterns and striking prints and complete with felt fedoras, paisley scarves, suspenders, bow ties and an ever-present carnation in his lapel, he would become a fixture in street style columns such as The ‘On the Street ‘ from the New York Times, written and photographed by his friend, photographer and fashion world institution Bill Cunningham.

In a 2014 column, Mr. Cunningham celebrated what he saw as “signs of a new peacock revolution,” calling Mr. Spano “a star of the movement.”

“He likes my style because it is quintessentially American,” Mr. Spano said of Mr. Cunningham in a 2012 interview with GQ magazine. “Everyone always tries to look elsewhere for inspiration, but we have such a great heritage here. In Hollywood in the 1930s, we dictated style around the world.”

He adapted his own sartorial style to the needs of billionaires, CEOs and leading men such as Al Pacino and Anthony Hopkins – first as a salesman and manager for custom clothing at Dunhill and Alan Flusser, later as a designer of custom suits and other items . for Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue, and finally in his own studio on West 57th Street.

With suits starting around $6,000 in recent years, the Spano look wasn’t cheap. But for some customers, money was no object.

Mr. Spano told the menswear website Film Noir lover that a billionaire client once flew him to the Caribbean on his 737 private jet to lounge around his new villa and sample from his wine cellar so that Mr. Spano could get a sense of the lifestyle his creations entailed—ultimately in worth $283,000 worth of linen suits, dinner jackets and the like – would inhabit.

Quoted in the 2013 book “I Am Dandy: The Return of the Elegant Gentleman” by Nathaniel Adams and Rose Callahan, Mr. Spano recounted a time when a Japanese customer wanted an exact copy of a beloved old green cashmere herringbone jacket. Mr. Spano told him that the necessary material was no longer available. “I have to make at least 70 meters at the mill,” he informed the client. “You only need two meters for the jacket.”

Undeterred, the client saved the required tens of thousands of dollars, using the remaining 700 square feet to upholster his private plane.

Domenico Spano was born on August 17, 1944 in the town of Scigliano, the middle of three children of Salvatore Spano and Elisabetta Oliva.

Because he came from a long line of military personnel, there was little in his background to indicate what career he would have later. He even followed in his ancestors’ footsteps in 1970 by graduating from the officers’ school in Florence for the Carabinieri, the Italian military police.

However, love took him in a completely different direction when he fell in love with his future wife, Rina Gangemi, an American who studied in Florence. “Three days after we met, I told her I was going to marry her, leave everything behind and follow her to this country,” he said in a 2013 interview with the style website Keikari. “By nature I am an incurable romantic.”

The couple married in 1972 and settled in Jersey City, New Jersey. Mr. Spano went to work as a bookkeeper for his father-in-law, Joseph Gangemi, a clothing manufacturer in Midtown Manhattan, before striking out on his own.

As a tradition-conscious haberdashery man who focused on a dignified look of yesteryear, Mr. Spano said he was swimming against the current in a style world dominated by casual baby boomers. “My generation was the worst,” he said. ‘Long hair, casual suits, flared trousers. It was a terrible generation.”

He also had to remind people that he was not a tailor. “Actually,” he said to Keikari, “I don’t know how to sew on a button.”

In addition to his daughter Elisabeth, Mr. Spano is survived by another daughter, Cristina Spano; a granddaughter; and a sister, Tina Spano. His wife died in 2003.

Throughout his career, Mr. Spano’s instincts were toward the abstract. “I dream 24 hours a day,” he said in “I Am Dandy.” “Dreaming is cheap. It costs nothing.”

“Sometimes,” he added, “I dream that I’m in movies from the 1930s. I can’t be Humphrey Bogart with my accent, but I can play a lowlife or a gangster.

“I feel sorry for people who don’t dream.”