The American clothing store Brooks Brothers has arrived in Rome, becoming the historic company's third outlet in Italy after Milan and Bologna.

The 250-sqm store is spread out over three floors and is located in Piazza S. Lorenzo in Lucina, in the heart of the centro storico just off Via del Corso, and will be opened officially in October.

For a number of weeks the store will display the original Brooks Brothers coat worn by the 16th US president, Abraham Lincoln, with whom it is most famously associated. Lincoln was considered a loyal customer and was wearing a Brooks Brothers suit when he was assassinated in 1865. The firm has outfitted 39 of the 44 American presidents, including incumbent Barack Obama, as well as numerous well-known figures over the years such as American actors Gary Cooper, Clark Gable and Cary Grant, members of the Morgan and Rockefeller dynasties, and Italian industrialist Gianni Agnelli.

With headquarters in New York, Brooks Brothers was founded in 1818 and is the oldest men's clothing chain in the US, although it now has a women's range of clothes too.

Since 2001 the Brooks Brothers Group has been privately owned by Italian billionaire Claudio del Vecchio, son of Luxottica founder Leonardo del Vecchio.

The Rome store is situated close to other leading foreign luxury fashion houses such as Argentina's La Martina, Britain's Burberry and of course France's Louis Vuitton which opened in January last year.