At the beginning of this year, dozens of very important and accomplished men (who wouldn’t ask the above question) ducked into Nairobi Serena’s Garden Wing suites for scheduled appointments with a man who would take their measurements and make them very expensive bespoke suits.

When they strode inside the lavish room that opened into a private garden that had fresh cut flowers in vases, assorted pastries and freshly squeezed juice, they came face-to-face with Angelo Petrucci, Brioni’s chief master tailor who was just shaking off jetlag after landing in the small hours of the morning but who looked unruffled and impeccable in a fitted blue suit.

These men didn’t need an introduction into the Brioni brand. They were already dyed-in-the-wool Brioni soldiers. They knew that the brand is a high-end Italian fashion giant that has been designing hand-made suits for men since 1945.

They also probably knew that President Barack Obama wears Brioni. So does New York’s political strongman “Rudy” Giuliani, Kofi Annan, Kirk Douglas, Donald Trump and Al Pacino, and that all the James Bonds from Golden Eye right up to Casino Royale wore Brionis. Even the late Nelson Mandela wore Brioni.

So yes, seeing Angelo who has fitted 39 presidents (he just fitted a famous president last week but he won’t disclose who), Hollywood movies stars, Middle-East oil tycoons and singers, is the go-to master tailor for those who seek superior Italian craftsmanship and luxury when it comes to suits.

Men of taste

Inside the room, Angelo was being hosted by Little Red, Kenya’s premier menswear store which is ranked in the top three in Africa. Looking dapper in fitted suits were the two not-so-little Reds – Aziz Fazal and his brother Karim.

Laptops whirred silently in the deeply carpeted room, as they pored over a list of Kenya’s VVIPs scheduled for fitting that day.

“Kenya is a super metropolitan country,” offered Aziz when he finally looked up from his laptop. “And these men of taste who come here for Made-to-Measure (MM) fittings, or what Italians call the Su Misura, are extremely well-travelled and don’t want to travel over winter and step out of the airports in Europe looking like a time zone. So they dress for the seasons.”

For the past six years, master tailors from Brioni and other renowned fashion houses have been coming into Kenya for the Su Misura event in spring/summer (March to May) and autumn/winter (September to November).

Anyway, back to this room of privilege. When these VVIPs walked into the room, Angelo – who joined Brioni’s revered in-house tailoring school when he was only 12-years-old – sized them up with his professional eye before he could run a tape measure along their bodies.

From a quick glance, he immediately knew if their arms were too long, if their backs were hunched, if their shoulders were folded or if their posture needed working on and his job was to make suits that would bring out the best of a man.

“We don’t make suits,” he told me, “We make second skins.” Welcome to the Esquire’s Club.

On the massive table, taking space in most of the room, were numerous swatches that bore hundreds and hundreds of fabrics of different colours and hues and hundreds of buttons ranging from leather, pearl, horn, metallic and gold-embossed, as well as scribbling pads and pens and calculator.