This suit was made by the man I am named after, Carmen Lippo. His name can be traced all the way back to the crusades, where "Lippo" was a title granted to the 1124 sackers of Aleppo by Pope Honorius II. My great grandfather's decedents eventually settled in Coseza, a city in the Southern Italian region of Calabria (the toe of the boot). Carmen came on a boat up the Deleware river to Philadelphia, where he started working in a garment factory, sewing buttons onto suit cuffs. After many years of developing his skill as a tailor, Carmen got hired as a tailor and bespoke suit-maker at Harry's Suits. The suit shows a fusion of his south Italian upbringing and hardworking Philadelphian immigrant life. The material is a wool tweed, favored in the British Isles for it's water resistance, durability, and warmth, while the colorful green, yellow, and red threads are elements of the colorful, tradition suiting of Southern Italy. The suit has short lapels and three buttons, as was the fashion of the time for working class men. They could button the middle one to hold the suit in place, or the top two for increased warmth. The cut of the suit is also a more functional and rectangular cut, contrary to the "upside-down triangle" shape of Italian suiting at the time. This suit was built for an unknown customer who's measurement Carmen was given on, but since the customer never picked the suit up, Carmen kept it for him. Seeing this fusion of my Italian heritage and modern immigrant family in Carmen's suit is very powerful, and it connects me back to where I came from.

– Carmen Simons

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more