The story of Massimo Guglielmi,
the Italian tailor behind Sartorial Bay
Born and raised in Rome, the Eternal City, Massimo grew up in a family of artisanal pâtissiers, surrounded by art and history. His interest in clothing began as a young child, inspired by the style of his grandfather, a shoemaker by trade with a natural flair for dressing up. At the age of ten, Massimo would dress for Sunday mass in a navy blazer, cream chinos and brown loafers. “I remember I felt so good… almost lifted, as if I had put on a special armour.”
Some twenty years later, that early inspiration led Massimo, quite by chance, into the world of tailoring. With no previous experience or formal training in tailoring, he began his career in 2005 in London as a visiting tailor.
Gifted with a natural flair for style and a knowledge of architectural design acquired at high school, Massimo learned tailoring with ease but above all developed a strong passion for the whole world of bespoke. Such was that passion that barely a year into the industry he pursued his dream of opening his own tailor house in London.
Savile Row, the Mecca of bespoke tailoring, was the inevitable destination. There he was mentored by a respected bespoke tailor on the Row and eventually worked at Huntsman, among the most acclaimed bespoke houses in the world.
Throughout his career Massimo has dressed thousands of gentlemen of all ages and walks of life, from businessmen and politicians to movie stars and sportsmen. He developed his craft by working closely with bespoke tailors, collaborated with Italian suiting and shirting manufacturers and partnered with fabric mills in Italy and England.
Italian style, Savile Row backbone
Founded in Sydney in 2013, Sartorial Bay is Massimo’s own tailor house, specialising in made to measure suits and menswear.
With more than 20 years’ experience in London and Sydney, this Italian tailor visits you at home or at work across Sydney, with fabric swatches, buttons, trimmings and a very good idea of how you should look.
Italian tailoring knows how to loosen the mood, but Savile Row bespoke knows how to hold a line. Massimo’s approach draws on both: the flair and irreverence of his Italian pedigree, influenced by Neapolitan sartorial style, combined with the technical sophistication and precision of fit he learned on Savile Row, applied here to made to measure.
Drawing from his pattern cutting expertise acquired from studying at the renowned London College of Fashion, Massimo can skilfully interpret not just the posture, shoulder line and body proportions, but also the way someone moves in order to establish all the adjustments needed for a flawless fit. That is where a suit goes from a great fit to something that makes you stand a little taller.
Massimo’s passion for tailoring extends far beyond creating an impeccably fitting suit. He has a particular talent for reading people: their personality, their lifestyle, their proportions and, just as importantly, how they want to feel in their clothes. It’s this understanding that allows him to create garments that don’t simply look good on someone, but look as though they could belong to nobody else.