Neal Rubin

Downtown tailor Orlando Nalli hangs up his chalk

After decades downtown, Orlando Nalli will retire

The last time Orlando Nalli left downtown, he told himself he was making a statement. Now he's leaving again, and the only statement involved is this one:

"It's time to be free."

The namesake of Orlando Clothiers turns 70 in a few weeks. He's been working since he was 10 1/2 .

That's the way it was back then and back there, four years after the end of World War II, when a little boy in Rome set out to learn a trade, and it was simply understood that he would be a tailor forever. Forever lasted until a few weeks ago, when he hung big signs in his window overlooking Congress Street that announced, "Store Closing. Retirement Sale."

It's not the end of an era, exactly. You can still buy suits, though best of luck finding a high-quality, suitable-for-a-jury-trial two-button within blocks of the U.S. District Courthouse.

But Nalli has survived flared pants, wide ties, multiple recessions, corporate downsizings and the rise of the dreaded Casual Friday. At Orlando Clothiers, you knew the dapper, silver-haired gentleman searching the racks for a 44 Long would also mark it, alter it and select the proper shirt and tie.

In a world where the kid helping you as best he can at a chain store might be selling cell phones in two months, Nalli represented tradition and consistency. Now it's half off and everything must go -- including the proprietor.

Tailor to the mayor

Joseph Lucas of Dearborn practices law a few floors above the store in the Murphy-Telegraph Building, next door to the Buhl. "He's like an old-world craftsman," Lucas says, and then he turns to Nalli. "I kind of see a fullness in the chest here."

Nalli spins him around, chalks a few quick slashes on the back of a pinstriped suit coat, and turns his attention to the pants.

"All of the lawyers, everybody used to buy two or three suits a year," Nalli says. There were more of them downtown in those days -- lawyers and suits -- and more stores, too.

He emigrated to Windsor in 1966, found work cutting clothes there, and then began commuting across the river to a list of stores unseen since Coleman Young was both the mayor and a customer. Saks Fifth Avenue in the New Center, Whaling's Men's Store in the Fisher Building, Kapler and Kapler, Van Boven.

When Van Boven expired downtown some 20 years ago, Nalli opened his own clothing store in the Penobscot Building. He moved it across the street to the Buhl, then moved again to St. Clair Shores in 2001.

He sold himself on the notion that it would be good to have Saturday hours and better parking, and maybe catch some extra business at Christmastime. Really, it was a landlord-tenant issue, and he jumped before he could find a space he truly liked.

Four years ago, he moved back to the city. Two months from now, or maybe a few months more if that's what it takes to sell out, he'll see if he's any good at doing nothing.

Trying to go casual

Maybe he'll play some golf, Nalli says. He'll spend time with his five grandkids. He'll sleep past 5:30 a.m. and leave his suits on their hangers.

Instead, he'll get up at 6 or 6:30, and he'll put on khakis and button-down shirts. Spend your life with your collar cinched and relaxation has its limits.

He's never given great thought to retirement, he says, any more than he's thought about what he might have done if he hadn't learned to measure and stitch.

"It was a different time," he explains. Unlike his two kids, who wanted no part of the clothing business, he had no options. It's OK. He doesn't have any regrets, either.

"We are simple people," he says, and his wife and colleague, Anna Maria, nods. "We like simple things."

He's wearing a gray suit with a light blue pinstripe, a light blue shirt and a red and blue striped tie. He says he's feeling worn, and you can only take his word for it. But he's going out the way he came in:

Looking sharp.

nrubin@detnews.com (313) 222-1874