Man on a custom-made mission

Leather goods from Berluti. Photos provided to China Daily

Berluti's creative director Alessandro Sartori aims to change the average man's attitude toward dressing. Kitty Go reports.

There is hardly any men's ready-to-wear designer who would quickly identify "bespoke tailors" as their brand's biggest competitors. Alessandro Sartori, creative director of Berluti, does. And with that he establishes a tall order for his luxury house, which started as a bespoke shoemaker to the glitterati in 1865.

He is no stranger to luxury, having been artistic director at Zegna, and is credited with the creation of the successful Z Zegna line before he joined Berluti in the summer of 2011. Although he started the clothing line from scratch, Sartori is on a mission to change the average man's (with a higher-than-average net worth) attitude to dressing.

Sartori has singled out "character" as Berluti's greatest strength and has run with it. Some of that character comes from their current and past famous clients but all of it is based on the thin line that runs between continental European and British dressing, which the soft-spoken Italian has mastered with this new venture.

"I was so delighted and looking forward to launching a brand with depth and beauty with an amazing heritage with customers like US artist Andy Warhol and Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni, Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge," he says. "Today we have shoe customers turned RTW customers like royal offspring Andrea Casiraghi and actor Jeremy Irons. The brand is a combination of Italian and French values such as the Italian quality and attention to detail but with French impertinence and attitude to colors like the use of dark violet, petrol blue and brown. But the attitude to make this work in a personal way is very British. We think about each customer with his own needs, desires and style."

This accurate and logical classification is chicly illustrated in their website in a user-friendly ready-to-wear section divided into English Boldness, Italian Nonchalance and French Classicism. Clothing styled for every fashion need in every area of a man's life is laid out and photographed like a magazine editorial and organized as a wardrobe should be.