Berluti Editions Rapiécé-Reprisé
The beauty of a man’s wardrobe lies in how it subtly reveals the passage of time – the way a jacket or a pair of shoes grow into their own shape over the years. Berluti Editions Rapiécé-Reprisé pieces reflect a man feels good in familiar, well-worn apparel that moulds itself naturally to his irregular shoulder blade or the hardness of his heel. There’s also an alluring quality to a leather patina, or to the tiny snags in a cloth that only the wearer notices, with his intimate knowledge of a treasured garment.
During the Early Modern period, aristocrats took pride in the visible signs of repair on their doublets. By the early 1800s, this finely executed stitching – reminiscent of the delicate Japanese art of kintsugi – had become a mark of affiliation among fashionable dandies in Paris and London. Patches and darns (inconspicuous or not) allowed a man to stand out for his consummate mastery of a time-honoured custom.
Around two hundred years later, in 2005, Olga Berluti brought the tradition back to life by creating Rapiécé-Reprisé. Hear how she described these shoes, with their delicate stitching: “Very comfortable models, marked by the passage of time, they pay homage to those clothes we’ve had all our lives that we can’t bring ourselves to throw away.”
She viewed these shoes as a tribute to the aristocratic men of the Renaissance and of Louis XIV’s reign, who bore the scars of repair on their doublets with pride. Berluti’s iconic female Master Shoemaker could now share the self-indulgent eccentricities of some of her most distinguished clients with a wider audience. Andy Warhol, for instance, helped usher in Rapiécé-Reprisé by asking Olga to mend the right shoe of one of his pairs of loafers. The American artist’s exact words were: “I’d like the right foot of my loafer patched. It has to show! It must be Andy Warhol!”
In 2024 Berluti Editions takes up the story in a new chapter, which pays homage to several centuries of masculine elegance while also directly referencing the Maison’s archives.
The aim is to make the shoe an extension of the man who wears it: this can be attained through the passage of time (there’s that concept again!), or through the craft of an excellent shoemaker, as evidenced in the first Berluti Editions capsule. Picking up on what Olga Berluti set in motion decades ago, this collection moves it forward while anchoring it firmly in contemporary style and in the affinities of men who wear – or aspire to wear – Berluti footwear. How? By capturing the beauty of time passing and encapsulating it in something, all the better to reproduce it. That’s the spirit that inspired this edition.
Rapiécé-Reprisé offers a new take on five emblematic Berluti models, each weaving its own story about the shoes and clothes that men wear. These Équilibre slippers, oxfords, loafers, derbies, monk straps and ankle boots come in versions with or without patching, the better to allow for playing mix’n’match.
