Berluti, A Heritage of Bootmaking

Lara Mansour   |   09-11-2015

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History

Alessandro Berluti, The Founder

Alessandro Berluti was born in Senigallia, a tiny Italian port town in in Le Marche on the Adriatic coast, on October 20th, 1865. It was here that he began carving out his future as an apprentice, constructing carriages from wood, seats and reins in leather. During these years of hard work he made friends with the old master shoemaker of his village and discovered with him the shoemaker’s craft and its severe demands : skilled wood carving to ensure the upmost accuracy of the last, due attention to the leather to ensure the quality of the shoe, and the necessity of perfection to please the client. In 1882, with his skills now honed, he was ready to discover the world and took to the road. A few years of journeying and adventure led him to Paris, the city of light and joie de vivre.

Gaieté Parisienne

A hard-working perfectionist, Alessandro rapidly found work with orders from a number of fellow-countrymen, experienced shoemakers with their own establishments. Everywhere between the Opéra and the Tuileries the newly established grand hotels of Paris welcomed an international clientele in search of novelty and Parisian elegance. And here Alessandro set up his own bootmaking workshop, to craft shoes for these wealthy men who were not only connoisseurs but also extremely exacting clients.

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Birth of a Style, The Dandies

In the effervescence of change that marked the turn of the century, with scientific progress advancing at great pace, artists were exploring unusual and diverse paths. The Symbolists invented a poetic language strongly influenced by mythology and dreams, while the swirling curves of Art Nouveau challenged the rigid and regular patterns of architecture. A generation of artists were challenging the codes of high society elegance and the smart gentlemen of the age dressed in exclusive and refined tailoring, immortalized in portraits by Boldini, Helleu and Sargent and in literature by authors from Proust to Loti.

During this search for a poetic aesthetic, Alessandro was fine-tuning his own style, and in 1895 he created an extraordinary lace-up shoe for men, the Alessandro, in an unusual design using a single piece of leather with no visible stitching, smooth and supple as a leather glove. Defying both time and fashion, this iconic shoe, the first under the Berluti name, became the foundation of the House style. In that same year Torello was born, the fifth and last child of Alessandro and Zénaïde Berluti.

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Torello Berluti, The Entrepreneus

Torello, motivated by the same passions and desires as his father, followed an almost identical path. He had inherited his father’s greatest gift: hands to express his creativity and intelligence.

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An Ideal Son

The young Torello could turn his hand to almost anything, but what he liked best were the noble materials – wood, leather and cloth – from which he could craft accoutrements for the elegant living of the day. A carpenter, cabinet maker, his greatest pleasure lay in creating and shaping beautiful things, bringing a touch of the exquisite to daily life.

La Forza Del Destino

By 1922, with the Roaring Twenties were gathering speed, Torello plunged himself enthusiastically into the bootmaker’s craft that his father had taught him to love. His approach was very advanced from the start: he thought in terms of volume while others were still thinking simply in sizes. He was particularly focussed on the beauty of the finished shoe. Echoing the Art Deco style of the period he preferred simple, clean lines, introducing the “Richelieu à plastron” (lace-panel Oxfords) and comfortable “Sans Gêne” elasticated boots. In 1928, to satisfy the flood of orders and receive his clients in comfort and style, Torello bought the lease of a shop at 9 rue du Mont Thabor. From there his fame spread, to such a point that wealthy international clients from the nearby grand hotels had their names put down on his waiting list for the privilege of wearing shoes made by Berluti.

Success Story

Torello and his family were now living on rue Saint Honoré. Early in the 1940’s the shop on rue du Mont Thabor had become too small to receive a clientele accustomed to luxury and comfort, so he acquired larger premises at 26 rue Marbeuf. Here, a stone’s throw from the Champs-Elysées, he was able to give shape to his passion for creation. With his characteristic meticulous detailing, he designed the refined interior of his new premises himself. Attentive and hard-working, he attracted intelligentsia and film stars to his shop and country house outside Paris.

Gaston and Claude Gallimard, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Achard or Jules Roy, but also Marcel l’Herbier, Yul Brynner, Charles Vanel or Pierre Mondy, these personalities and many others became ambassadors for Berluti’s excellence. Torello and his wife Assunta had one child, a son called Talbinio.

Talbinio Berluti, The Innovator

Brought up in his father’s world of creative discipline and elegance, Talbinio imagined a future tailored to his own ambitions: the international renown of a Maison entirely dedicated to masculine elegance. He was nurtured by a family that had successfully established its social standing, nevertheless he chose to learn the bootmaker’s craft under the benevolent authority of his father Torello.

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The Personal Road

Talbinio cultivated his design talents, sketching elegant masculine silhouettes clothed from head to toe, shod in Berluti’s new creations, such as the emblematic lace-up loafers. For him, a young man born into the dynamic post-War period, the time had come to change, innovate and give Berluti an international dimension.

With typical visionary enthusiasm and audacity, Talbinio introduced ready-to-wear de luxe shoes in 1959, a selection of entirely hand-made models in the great bootmaking tradition, but immediately available. This idea, at the dawn of a new era, opened the door to a very specific and younger clientele.

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For the boutique, he designed a modern, functional decor, where new customers could mingle with established clients to discover both ready-to-wear and made-to-measure shoes. Even fervent advocates of bespoke footwear, such as Edie Constantine, Truffaut, Godard, or Chabrol found immediate satisfaction in the new ready-to-wear models offered at rue Marbeuf.

Cultivated, charming and attractive, by introducing remarkable changes, Talbinio had written, with grace and some success, a new page in the history of the House. Subsequently, Talbinio was joined by his young cousin Olga, who injected yet another burst of creative energy into the family business.

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Olga Berluti, The Artist

When she arrived at rue Marbeuf in 1959, straight from the Italian village in Emilia-Romagna where she was born, Olga, Talbinio’s cousin, discovered a world whose manners and

values were foreign to her, yet her lively and cheerful disposition rapidly won her the hearts and minds of Berluti’s clients. Little by little, she developed a long-lasting creative affinity with her cousin Talbinio, who was by now the head of the firm. Her youthful vitality worked its magic on all who came, turning their purchasing decisions into a charming game.

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Colours

Talbinio’s imagination paired with Olga’s boldness worked wonders. Olga transformed the shop into a drawing room where clients could enjoy conversation in good company. Jacques Lacan would chance upon Roman Polanski and Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Bergé or Karl Lagerfeld. In 1962, Olga’s perception of the young artist, both rebel and client, Andy Wharol led her to create an exceptional pair of loafers. The shoes’ clean, unconventional lines gave them an unmistakable stamp of modernity, and the artist immediately recognized their unique character, their avant-garde originality echoing his own artistic endeavors. He took possession on them enthusiastically, and they carried his name ever after, with the model becoming one of the classics of the House.

It was a light-hearted period, the future looked promising, and bold colours made their entry into this now venerable institution. Olga brought a touch of spice to luxury, perfecting Berluti’s Venezia leather and introducing a hand-finished patina in a palette of exclusive shades. The House’s very individual shoes and the soul Olga discovered for them made the magic that to this day remains the romantic signature of Berluti.

The Signature

Lasts, The Foundation of Bootmaking Know-How

Since 1895 each successive Berluti generation has cultivated an exceptional mastery of last-making and a deep understanding of fine footwear. The consistent result has been shoes of incomparable comfort and elegance, expressed in the House saying : “you cannot be elegant if you are not comfortable and well shod”. These techniques and this expertise, initially developed for bespoke footwear, were also brought into service for the ready-to-wear collections.

Customers begin their bespoke experience by having their feet expertly measured. A last is then constructed in wood to perfectly match their feet. Next, a pattern of the selected model is cut and a prototype made of one upper stitched to a sole. Only once the customer returns to try the prototype and it has been modified can the construction of the definitive pair of shoes begin.

Berluti’s artisans produce shoes using four distinct specialist techniques, each one of which helps form the personality of the shoe. Hand-stitched Blake construction, where the outer sole is stitched directly to the insole, is ideally suited to lightweight, flexible shoes. Goodyear welting, where the upper and sole are first stitched to the welt, is perfect for both comfort, durability and future repair, which Berluti can provide. Norwegian assembly has the welt flush to both the upper and the sole, and gives a durable shoe with a very waterproof finish. Berluti also produces softer and suppler shoes with a non-welted tubular construction, such as driving shoes or slippers, which have a hand- sewn vamp.

Leather

Venezia Leather and its Patina

The Venezia leather used by Berluti was developed after years of research exclusively by and for the House. Immediately recognisable, it owes its unique flexibility to its initial vegetable tanning and its durability to a secondary tanning process with mineral salts.  This expert and jealously guarded knowhow gives the unvarnished leather an exquisite texture when it is patinated, a process that imparts to the finished leather its totally unique and special character.

Perfected during the 1980’s, the famous Berluti patinas revolutionized the world of male footwear by introducing colour at a time when the majority of men’s shoes were either black or brown. These patinas overlay the Venezia leather with colours that are both transparent and exceptionally deep, bringing individual life to each pair of shoes, for each patina is the unique result of hand-finishing by Berluti’s expert colourists.

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Emblematic Colours

Tobacco Brown: since its creation in 1895, the Alessandro lace-up was a warm amber. This characteristic shade brings a touch of nature’s wild side to the sober classicism of brown. The suggestion of tobacco fragrances harmoniously blending with the scent of leather carries the client into a world of sense perceptions.

Saint-Emilion Red: a deep, brilliant red that brings the nobility of a great terroir wine to the shoes it glosses. This association of grands crus with great leathers captures the client’s imagination and draws him into a sophisticated world, where the touch of skilled hands brings nature’s sublime generosity to the peak of perfection.

A House with Character

Three Characteristics

Berluti is the story of a long-lived passion ripening over time. Men have always been attracted to the classicism and rigour of the House heritage. Proudly impervious to time, Berluti rises above and beyond mere ephemeral fashion.

Installed in the heart of Paris, between the Tuileries and the Place Vendôme, Berluti’s founders absorbed the fertile influence of the royal architecture around them, whose pure lines gave them a taste for proportion, balance and perfection.

Each and every day in Berluti’s workshops, with much patience and virtuosity, highly skilled cutters and tailors turn leather and cloth into both bespoke and ready-to-wear collections. Attention to detail, respect for skill and technique, perfection in cutting and assembling, matched with imagination and a taste for elegance -these are the cornerstones of Berluti’s culture, foundation and history.

The House cultivates an art de vivre that rejects the boredom of banality, so self-deprecation, joie de vivre, lightness and humour also have a place. With a touch of fantasy in its soul, Berluti occasionally enjoys transgressions and digressions from established codes. A three-piece suit worn with boots, a soft-collared shirt worn with a bow tie, or jeans cut in flannel – these details add an irreverent flourish.

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The Club

From the beginning, Berluti clients belong to a world apart, one reserved exclusively for those whose taste for the rare and appreciation of perfection means they belong to a community of men who are hedonists. These experts in the high art of true luxury are both collectors and connoisseurs.

They share a certain taste for enjoyment and refinement which they find at Berluti. The expertise embodied in the products of the House, such as a shoe cut from a single piece of leather, an overcoat lined with sable and cashmere, or exclusive experiences – the bootmaker who calls to take measurements, a tasting at Château d’Yquem, an invitation to take part in a car race – all bring a touch of magic to the lives of men who love daring and adventure.

The private universe of Berluti is a club whose members make light of established codes, avoiding the commonplace, inventing a savoir-vivre that is distinctively off the beaten track of convention. They are collectors of rare experiences which mingle surprise with the pleasures of discovery. In their quest, the legendary history of Berluti is their shared roadmap, weaving, between connoisseurs, the subtle links of complicity.

 

 

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