Berluti’s CEO Jean-Marc Mansvelt staying focused on what it does best

All about focusing on legacy this season at Berluti, the only brand in menswear that boasts bespoke footwear and tailoring departments.

And, as its latest swish storytelling makes clear, the brand remains smartly anchored to its origins, as the maker of the finest footwear for gents in France.
 
Founded in 1895, Berluti forged its reputation in the 60’s when stars like Yves Saint Laurent, Andy Warhol and Marlene Dietrich became huge fans. After being acquired by LVMH in 1993, it began developing ready-to-wear in 2011 designed by three very respected menswear talents: Alessandro Sartori, Haider Ackermann and Kris Van Assche. These days, though devoid of a creative director, the house has been smart enough to exploit the best of each designers’ legacy, as its latest presentation underlined.

Staged inside the very elegant Simone et Cino Del Duca Fondation, a mansion on Parc Monceau, where one room was given over to the Shadow, a posh techy sneaker invented by Van Assche.
 
Guests had to love that installation, a play on René Magritte with a poster reading “Ceci n’est pas une Charentaise”, referring to the much-loved French slippers, with cut out gents reposed wearing the Shadow.
 
“With all of us expected to march steps 10,000 daily, we have lightened up the Shadow, our latest versions are the weight of an iPhone lighter than the originals,” smiled Berluti’s cerebral CEO.

 
Adding anti-slip grip, added flexibility and footprint memory, the Shadow is seriously good performance wise. Produced in heat-reducing cooling knit, linen or cashmere it are also thoroughly stylish.
 
While Sartori’s legacy is apparent in the Mont Thabor, an updated version of a college loafer he develop that features an elongated nose for day, a sleek glove line for evening. The shoe is named after the location of the very first Berluti store on rue Mont Thabor and is the basis of one of five tableaux on the mansion’s top floor. 
 
Two other tableaux feature brand new shoes, the Alessandro 1895, created from a single piece of leather, and finished with the signature three lace holes and the house’s special patina. Close by is the debut Far Ninete, a cunning new super soft shoe that’s light yet finished with practical studs.
 
Finally, there’s a fresh take on the Stella, a diamond-shaped sturdy sneaker, where they reined in the angularity and upped the Venetian patina, most spectacularly in Imperial Roman purple.

“We like to take something from all the legacy, from Alessandro and Kris and from Olga,” he noted, referring to the scion of the founding family.

In terms of ready-to-wear, each stand featured a Forestier, a high-neck lapel-free jacket that Berluti perfected, while a new selection of silky seersucker windowpane jackets looked excellent.
 
“We are concentrating on our icons. Though opening up the way you way wear them,” explained Jean Marc.

  
He won’t reveal annual sales, which industry estimates place at around €150 million. But notes that the band “is a growing business. And compared to the average we are doing much better. And it’s a profitable brand.”

“Our DNA is savoir faire, singularity and having a strong point of view. Like when Olga launched the Deux Jours (bag concept). When we were at Vuitton, we said, ‘what the?’ And I won’t use the same word as Mr. Trump the other day. But what a statement idea,” he chuckles.
 
This season the house also presented subtle new acquarelle, or watercolor, leather where the calfskin has a certain suggestion of brush strokes. Seen in some natty jerkins and blousons, finished with Berluti breast-pocket zip. Talk about haute-cult menswear.
 
“We celebrate the fact that people invest in our Berluti products. Which is why we wanted to show that any of our shoes or sneakers can be worn with lots of outfits in many different contexts,” underlined Mansvelt.
 
Berluti makes all its own footwear in its own plant in Ferrara, near Bologna, that employs 400 people. Sourcing its leather from multiple tanneries, some even owned by LVMH. It’s an area of expertise for Mansvelt, who was head of leather goods at Louis Vuitton for a decade. 
 
“The shoe is the foundation of our maison, and it’s also the foundation of our silhouette,” the CEO concluded.

Very much a very retail driven business, Berluti counts 65 fully owned boutiques, in malls, department stores on the street. Plus, 10 franchise stores, and just a few wholesale clients like Bergdorf Goodman.
 
In the recent past, they have consolidated the chain, and carried out “touch-ups like in Ginza, or a full revamp, like a new complete renovation in IFC Pudong, the number one mall in China,” he noted.

Using a new concept that emphasizes an easier clearer approach that is easier and clearer for our clients. Brighter and more open. Like in a new store, due to open in mid-March 2026 in the mall in Abu Dhabi, with design created in-house. Fifteen years ago, Berluti invested an estimated €200 in ramping up the brand and opening top location stores. When Gwenael Nicolas, architect from the firm Curiosity, did most of the early Berluti store design. 
 
“When it comes to customers, we monitor them a lot within LVMH. And I am happy say that the level of loyalty, passion and attachment to this maison is exceptional. When you put them all together all – the fashion and leather goods houses in our group, including the monsters. – we are better compared to all of them when it comes to frequency, loyalty and level of purchase,” he beamed.
 
Creatively, Berluti has three teams for shoes, leather goods and fashion, based in the house’s Faubourg St. Honoré headquarters.
 
The sheer quality of Berluti’s raw materials they get to work with was highlighted by a room full of raw and treated skins – from silky papery leather to a grainy rawhide one had to love.
 
Though one always returns to the foot at Berluti, which the house recognizes –  seeing as the first room of this polished presentation is one giant, two-meter-long white foot, large enough like a Roman emperor in the Roman Forum.