IMMORTAL SOLES

Her dedication to bespoke footwear is almost religious, but Olga Berluti has plenty of followers who share her beliefs

Creative director Olga Berluti BY JOSH SIMS

If you’re a a serious shoe connoisseur – and a man – chances are you will have heard about Berluti, the legendary Parisian company renowned for its luxurious footwear. Berluti creations are to men what Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos are to woman… and so much more. The shoes inspire such devotion that a special clique of Berluti fans, known as the Swann Club, regularly meets in a swanky location where, standing in their bespoke suits and socks, they polish their beloved Berlutis… using Venetian linen and vintage Dom Pérignon Champagne! And if this sounds over the top, there’s more to come: it all takes place by the light of the moon, the reason being that the sun burns, whereas the moon burnishes and gives transparency to leather. It’s fitting that there is only one rule at this unique and eccentric gathering: no “bores” are allowed!

The black lace-up
Alessandro, part of
the Demesures
Classiques collectionThe creative director of the company, Olga Berluti, is as passionate about her products as her devoted followers, and understands what makes them tick: “Connoisseurs first simply desire our shoes. Then they have to think about it more deeply,” says Berluti, who, to British ears, speaks with a poetic turn of phrase that only the French can get away with. “We know they need to take their time in order to let the idea ‘mature’ because, once adopted, the men who buy our shoes keep them for years – they will never end up at the bottom of their wardrobes, but on the altar. Man stands in his shoes as if on the bridge of a sailing ship.”

The Berluti ship is more an ocean-going, wood-panelled private yacht. Berluti shoes do not come cheap – a basic pair can cost £500, a bespoke pair up to £3,000. And yet, by remaining at the top of the market and offering something truly special, the company has cornered a loyal clientele of largely, though not always, recession-proof customers.

Indeed, the characteristic Berluti style – a narrow toe, deeply burnished leather, sometimes deliberately scarred uppers or, most recently, a wolf’s paw-print embedded into the sole – has allowed the brand to remain distinctive while competitors disappear into a miasma of look-alike brogues and Oxfords. Certainly Berluti believes that sticking to your guns, however uncommercial it may seem, is the secret to success in the luxury market.

The Berluti flagship store in
Paris at 26 Rue Marbeuf “To me, luxury is a sign of uniqueness. Luxury means having a real personality, like a painter or sculptor,” she says. “It means staying out of the luxury game, as other brands might see it. I have a sharp, very particular look upon the world. I always watched how the others play and have fun, which perhaps leads me to have an acute take on people that feeds into the designs.”

Small wonder that Berluti is, and always has been, worn by big shots: the late Pope John Paul, Yves Saint Laurent, Jean Cocteau, Salavador Dali, Federico Fellini and Richard Burton are just some of the luminaries who have stepped out in style in Berluti shoes. When she was just 18, Olga created the “Andy” loafer for Andy Warhol, while the pearl-encrusted “coronation” shoes she designed for Jean-Bédel Bokassa (the self-appointed emperor of the Central African Republic), cost £50,000.

Demand, however, has not always been consistent: the company struggled during the recession of the early 90s and, to some extent, was rescued through acquisition by the LVMH luxury conglomerate. That also gave the business a new lease of life: a branding overhaul and new shops have followed. The parent company has been wise, however, in largely leaving Berluti to retain the intimacy of a small family business. Olga, after all, was preceded by Talbinio Berluti, who shod the Kennedy clan; Torello Berluti before him was marketing-savvy enough to open a landmark Berluti shop next to the Paris Ritz; and it was cabinet-maker turned bootmaker Alessandro Berluti who established the Berluti firm in 1895. That is a heritage money cannot buy.

another pair of the
highly coveted shoes –
Evade, part of the Fil
D’Ariane collectionSometimes, that family attitude to business has verged on the backward: simple chauvinism meant that Olga was originally not permitted to train as a shoemaker. It was only through many years as an award-winning costume designer that the family finally assented to her undergoing 10 years of shoe-making apprenticeship. On the plus side, Olga believes that a family business with a very specialist product is most likely to weather any financial storms.

“Berluti is still a family business and we welcome the customer like a special being with a singular wish,” she explains. “As long as they are exceptional beings – and by that I mean people who are special throughout the strength of their desires – the company will be there to listen to them carefully. That desire is infinite: we can capture it and also employ new technologies to develop shoe designs that can keep up with our imagination.”

That technology, mixed with old-fashioned craftmanship, is certainly put to some interesting uses. One iconic line of shoes, for example, required the development of a new leather piercing and inking technique to give us the first tattooed footwear. It’s this kind of novelty, says Olga, that really guarantees the brand’s future. As advanced manufacturing techniques and faster distribution dilute the idea of luxury

– and cause high-fashion products to become increasingly homogenised – consumers are reconfiguring their idea of what constitutes the truly special. With the term “luxury” being applied by marketing bods to everything from cat food to dish cloths, Berluti is one of the few brands to remain genuinely distinctive and luxurious.

 
Richard Burton and Andy Warhol are just two in a long
list of notable personalities to have owned Berluti shoes

“There is an elite for whom handmade goods are reflective of a kind of ‘art of good living’,” Berluti explains. “More and more, this is what top-end customers are seeking – just possessing such an object, wanting that object, shoes in our case, is a powerful driver. And I like to think that that desire remains unchanged as their shoes become more beautiful over the years, like an old brandy.”

Or, indeed, a bottle of vintage Champagne. To those who are happy in a pair of battered trainers, it may seem barmy not to drink it. But not to the Berluti followers.