PARIS — With 2023 promising to be another year of designer musical chairs in the luxury industry, at least one brand is happy to be left without a creative figurehead.
Berluti, which belongs to the French luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, returns this season to the official calendar of Paris Fashion Week for the first time since the departure in 2021 of its artistic director Kris Van Assche.
Far from being idle in the meantime, the house has revamped its ready-to-wear and accessories collections, and is now ready to showcase the work of its in-house team.
It is the first time since the launch of its ready-to-wear line in 2012 that the footwear specialist has operated without a creative director, following the tenures of Alessandro Sartori, Haider Ackermann and Van Assche. Antoine Arnault, Berluti’s chief executive, said the gear change proved beneficial.
“While you may think there is a risk that it will leave us out of the conversation, or less in step with the trends, it’s nice to see the exact opposite happening. And coming out of the fashion scene, with this obligation to offer something new every season, we have benefited from being much more self-confident and true to our artisan roots,” he said.
“We don’t do a fashion show anymore, but we communicate differently. We do a lot of one-on-one appointments with our long-standing clients. Special and custom orders are getting better and better, so it’s all very virtuous, and it’s nice to be a little less visible,” adds Arnault. “This works much better for us and our customers feel it too.”
While the executive declined to provide figures, he said sales reflected the brand’s renewed momentum after the coronavirus pandemic. “Our shoes and leather goods are doing very well in Asia, especially Japan,” he noted. “When you look at the department store rankings in those countries, we’re not too far behind the major brands.”
Harold Israel, Berluti’s vice president of marketing and image, said the “very good” performance in 2022 was the fruit of an overall refresh aimed at reinforcing the brand’s pillars, highlighting craftsmanship and optimizing its ready-to-wear assortment. , with a focus on travel. -friendly pieces that combine comfort and luxury.
“By focusing a little less on fashion and revisiting our pillars and our assortments, we’ve made our message and brand identity much clearer, and our customers have come back,” he said. “All our iconic products have been renewed to improve the quality of the construction and refine the execution in terms of coatings and finishes, and above all to harmonize them.”
Berluti’s fall 2023 collection, titled “The Great Escape”, will be presented on Wednesday in a showroom at the brand’s Paris headquarters.
A six-piece line of suitcases and bags will launch in September using the new Toile Marbeuf canvas, featuring a fresh take on the Scritto, Berluti’s signature 18th-century handwritten motif. With its rich brown leather trim, inspired by the woodwork and club chairs found in the brand’s historic boutique on Rue Marbeuf, it’s designed for a retro feel.
Meanwhile, Berluti plans to soften the Signature canvas it unveiled in 2020.
A look from Berluti’s fall 2023 collection.
Dominique Maitre for WWD
On the footwear front, the brand offers new variations on classic styles like the Ultima, now lined in shearling for a wintery feel, and its best-selling Shadow sneaker. Meanwhile, classic bag styles like the Trois Nuits, launched in 2005, have been given a makeover.
“Shoes are really at the core of our expertise, so the quality is extremely high. We wanted our leather goods offering to be on the same level,” Israel said.
Similarly, Berluti has been refining its ready-to-wear to make it increasingly lightweight, with items including a burgundy leather version of its B-Way jacket, a deerskin varsity jacket, and a lightweight down jacket. made of supple patinated leather.
“Building a light piece is not easy. It’s much simpler to make something quite structured and rigid, and it’s also less expensive, while refining pieces like this is very complex and requires real knowledge,” Israel said.
The fall collection is divided into four releases and hits stores from July to December. While Berluti has no plans to grow its global network of around 60 stores, it has a visiting schedule scheduled for major launches, including a capsule golf collection and the new Lorenzo Drive loafer in the first half, and the Marbeuf canvas. In the second half.
The brand plans to repeat its Live Iconic campaign, launched in 2022 with images of two of its legendary clients, Marcello Mastroianni and Andy Warhol. It’s all part of your new customer-centric strategy.
“Our message is that we are more of a luxury house than a fashion house; that’s really the territory we want to explore, but we don’t want to do it in a repetitive, boring, or uncreative way. We want to do it with one intention, which is to highlight our knowledge and show how we envision a men’s wardrobe, and we believe that vision is relevant and real,” Israel said.
Source: news.google.com