E. Marinella ⭐ Top pick

A 20-square-meter shop, four generations, and the same ritual every morning at 6:30. A Marinella tie isn't an accessory. It's a conversation between Naples and London that's lasted 110 years.

1914. Eugenio Marinella opens a boutique in Piazza Vittoria, on the Riviera di Chiaia in Naples. Not a tie shop - a meeting place for gentlemen, where imported English accessories are also sold. The store is 20 square meters. It has hardly changed in size since.

The inspiration comes from London. Eugenio admires the shops on Piccadilly and Jermyn Street. He imports English fabrics - silks, wools, cashmeres - and works them in the Neapolitan style. The fusion of the two worlds gives the Marinella style: British discipline, Neapolitan flair.

After the war, his son Luigi took over and began producing ties in-house. Hand printed silk, hand sewn, seven folds or six folds unlined. The boutique became a must for the Neapolitan, then Italian, then international elite.

Maurizio Marinella, third generation, transformed the small family boutique into a global brand without ever leaving the Riviera di Chiaia. The list of clients is absurd: Chirac, Mandela, the princes of Monaco, presidents, aristocrats, industrialists. Every morning at 6:30 a.m., Maurizio opens the store himself.

Today Alessandro, fourth generation, works alongside his father. Production remains in Naples. The silks come from Como and England. There are now a few boutiques elsewhere - Tokyo, Lugano, Milan - but the heart remains this tiny Neapolitan boutique where you enter without an appointment and leave with a tie that will last twenty years.