Financial manager stiffs Umberto the Tailor for $27K in custom suits

Umberto the Tailor, a master of the craft of creating bespoke suits and shirts for well-heeled customers, wants to get paid.

Umberto Pitagora claims that a financial manager, Brian V.S. McKenna of Riverside, Connecticut, ordered $30,400 in tailored suits and pants but skipped out on payments.

umberto the tailor
Umberto Pitagora. Photo courtesy of Umberto Pitagora website.

He believes that McKenna works in Purchase, New York, so he sued his customer in Westchester Supreme Court on Nov. 12 to enforce a $27,400 default judgment from Superior Court in Stamford.

McKenna, according to the Connecticut lawsuit, ordered the garments in December 2016. They include four suits ”“ navy self herringbone, gray nailhead, navy bead stripe and blue over plaid gray worsted ”“ at $6,000 each, a navy serge blazer at $4,500 and Oxford gray and tan gabardine trousers at $950 each.

McKenna made a $3,000 down payment, but when the clothing was finished and ready for delivery, the complaint states, McKenna failed to pay for the services.

Pitagora sued McKenna in Connecticut last year. McKenna failed to appear before the court and the judge granted the tailor a default judgment.

Pitagora takes his business seriously. Men”™s Fitness magazine headlined him as the “Obi-Wan Kenobi of suit making,” in a 2017 article likening him to the wizened master Jedi from the “Star Wars” films.

Pitagora, who is in his mid-70s, apprenticed himself to a master tailor in Nicastro, Italy, at age 14. After working in Florence, Italy and Baltimore, he moved to Fairfield County in 1970, working in Darien, Wilton and more recently, Greenwich.

He prides himself on taking precise measurements that enable him to sculpt fabric to the customer”™s unique geometry and needs.

When a magician needed special pockets sewn into a long-tail performance coat, according to the Men”™s Fitness article, Pitagora sized two pigeons for the job.

Umberto the Tailor Inc.”™s efforts to collect the Connecticut default judgment in Westchester are based on the belief that McKenna is employed by OTR Global LLC, an international financial consulting firm in Purchase.

McKenna”™s LinkedIn profile shows him working for OTR as a managing director, from July 2015 to the present.

But according to a BrokerCheck report by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, he has not worked at OTR since October 2017 and he is no longer registered as a broker.

Efforts to find contact information for McKenna, to get his side of the story, failed.

Umberto the Tailor was represented in the Fairfield lawsuit by Louis P. Pittocco of Greenwich. His attorney in the Westchester case is Steven D. Feinstein of Feinstein & Naishtut LLP of Rye Brook.