Berluti’s new sporty tailoring

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jun 24, 2017

Subtle, sleek, slick summer style with a sporty twist at Berluti, in a brilliantly staged show before a high-powered audience and the heirs to luxury’s greatest fortune.
 

Both Delphine and Antoine Arnault – the latter president of Berluti – sat front row to witness the second collection for the house designed by Haider Ackermann. Presented with great elegance inside a courtyard of the 18th century Monnaie de Paris, as models entered from five different directions crisscrossing each other on the cobblestones.
 
Known as an avant gardist, the clothes were a clear affirmation that this designer knows how to rein in his fantasy cutting in order to create a cool contemporary wardrobe. Four years ago, Berluti acquired the famed Paris tailor Arnys to build a bespoke division. Ackermann is clearly getting in sync with his tailoring staff. Judging by the impeccably cut, eight-button double breasted black serge suit worn with broad strap sandals, or a brilliant golden cream two-button double breasted suit, ideal for any matinée idol or lothario.

In a surprise move, Ackermann included several women in this show, opening it with Liya Kebede in mannish track pants and crew neck sweatshirt. And drawing a murmur of approval from the audience when veteran Stella Tennant marched out with a similarly chiseled-jaw model in matching black leather dusters with white reverse lapels. Uber casual, with not a tie in sight.
 

The show marked a radical change in color palette. Gone were the deep purple and crimsons of winter, in came beige, tobacco and cream. Unlike his signature show presented two nights before, the look was clean and devoid of any prints. It all suggested, that LVMH’s goal of building Berluti into a men’s couture powerhouse is proceeding well.
 
However, when it came to Berluti’s bread and butter, shoes, the whole look was restrained. Proud owners of the Berluti Fontana boot with its tell-tale slashed top, developed by his predecessor Alessandro Sartori, will not feel threatened about being upstaged.
 
Presented before a front row of sports stars and fashion insiders; from basketball player Dwayne Wade and actress Lou Doillon to hipster chef Daniel de la Falaise and Setsuko Klossowska de Rola, the widow of artist Balthus, singing the praises of the current exhibition Derain, Balthus, Giacometti in the Palais de Tokyo.
 
“Quite simply, it is the most beautiful of shows,” she said of the exhibition, which a pass from the Chambre Syndicale allows visiting editors and buyers to see for free. Ideal timing when designers in Paris area creating clothes to make men look, above all, like sporty artists.