Still, Cucinelli’s mother read Dante and the legend of King Arthur by candlelight in the evenings. Brunello, the youngest boy in the family, became a voracious reader and a bit of a dreamer. Signorino, his older brothers called him, an endearment and a critique that suggested he was "a delicate young nobleman." Perhaps it was true: He gravitated to the allure of making something high-end, something aspirational. Which is how he came to the idea of cashmere, a fabric that had symbolic power. "You never throw out a cashmere sweater, do you?" he says. "I’ve worn a sweater of mine for many years, and my wife told me the other day, ’Perhaps it’s time to say good-bye to this one,’ and I said, ’Never—at the very least we’ll use it to dust the furniture.’ "

But more than just the quest for longevity and quality, there seems to be something else in it for Brunello, something important and profound that he can’t quite put words to. Instead, he tells a story. After the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, he went up into the castle tower, with its fifteenthcentury frescoes depicting important scenes from Italian history, and found himself thinking about Hadrian, the great Roman emperor, who built the Temple of Venus and rebuilt the Pantheon. There was a lesson, a reassurance, in that sort of permanence. This is the world. How many people have died for it! And yet we go on.

When he tells this story, I ask what that might have to do with fashion, with the work of his own life. "This jacket that I’m wearing is eight years old," he says. "I don’t want to throw it away. It will go in my wardrobe eventually, and I will revisit it. For me, it’s like gazing upon the frescoes. This is where fashion touches eternity.

"The dead never die," he says. "They’re always among us."

Brunello has promised something special for the next day. He’s volunteered to show me how to dress as an Italian gentleman. I’ve not been dressed since the days of diapers, and even in the hands of a maestro, I’m skeptical, assuming that old defensiveness. I’m certain that I can’t be salvaged—"You’re the only adult I know who wears Crocs as dress shoes," my wife tells me—because surely I don’t want to be.

We are standing now in another large white room that adjoins Brunello’s office, a room packed with Brunello Cucinelli menswear, soft cashmere sweaters arrayed in all the colors of some dusky candy rainbow, cashmere suits that hang comfortably from the hanger, leather and suede shoes of all varieties waiting for feet. There are blazers, scarves, and ties, all begging to be worn. Brunello’s soldiers glimmer in and out, bustling and assessing, assembling at his command "a look" that might work for me.

When I fall into a litany of my various sartorial afflictions, he steps back and squints at my ensemble, a fairly innocuous uniform of J.Crew jeans, flannel shirt, Patagonia sweater. "Be honest," I say, then hold my breath for the damage. "Why not!" he says to my surprise. "You appear young, sporty, intellectual. You look American." Two out of four, and one is a reach, but I’ll take it. But why do I look American—what’s the giveaway? "The American wears three layers," says Brunello, "always the T-shirt, another shirt, and a sweater. The Italian man never wears the T-shirt. This is not good or bad. I like the way the gray of it matches the sweater. But we don’t do this."