The Berluti Editions Rapiécé-Reprisé footwear collection offers a new take on five emblematic Berluti models, each weaving its own story about the shoes and clothes that men wear.
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.
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.
The most individualised of all in this masculine wardrobe are surely the Équilibre slippers. Rapiécé-Reprisé reissues its trio, introducing an asymmetry in these shoes: two different versions of the shoe for the right foot and one for the left.
As Verlaine wrote in Art Poétique, “Before all else, music/And for this, prefer the odd.” This poetry of imbalance is what Rapiécé-Reprisé seeks to find in the central piece of this edition, in the Luna Piena patina.
Each shoe bears distinctive, meticulously crafted patching, which infuses an understated note of urbane sophistication. This is how one achieves the measure of refinement demanded by a prestige edition.
The Rapiécé-Reprisé piece that curves across the shoe’s upper is inset using a turn-and-stitch construction. First the leather is folded by hand to give it a wave shape. Next, perforations are made with a specialist tool. Then the leathers are sewn together with waxed cotton thread, in a stitching process that takes two hours and is done entirely by hand.
What makes this stage so complex is the need for the stitching to be flawlessly regular: every stitch must follow the direction and curve of the wave inset, in order to achieve a perfectly clean finish.
All these shoes are designed to create the impression of having been worn for ages. They have a sense of weightlessness, thanks to the depth and suppleness of Berluti’s hallmark Venezia leather.
A slimline design and straight-edged outsoles result in a highly contemporary profile, while still channelling the codes of Rapiécé-Reprisé. All the models in the capsule are made with an elegant Blake construction, which conceals the stitching while giving the shoe unbeatable flexibility.
On a final note, if time is truly to do justice to the shoemaker’s artistry, shoes also need to be taken care of.
Rapiécé-Reprisé factors this in by proposing two different shoe trees. One is designed for low-top shoes and the other is slightly higher, for ankle boots.
Both are tinted burgundy to match the shoes’ linings, with a varnish that accentuates the veining in the wood and enhances its natural beauty.
But there’s more than shoes to this collection. It also comprises four different models of leather accessories – E Mio, Un Jour, Toujours and Nino – as well as wallets and a belt. Once again, their names are a nuanced play on the passage of time, that fundamental law of male elegance.
Designed and crafted with the same care as the footwear in this capsule, they also bear the same patinas. There are more visual echoes, too, in the emblematic hand-stitched patching that repeats across every piece and serves to add a playful twist to the staples of a man’s wardrobe.
Acid Green, a fusion of soft yellow and deep green, expresses the dynamism and vibrancy of youth. It’s the patina of spring and nature bursting into life.
Luna Piena blends dark blues with a velvety black, conjuring up brief, fleeting summer nights – and how soft and sweet they are. This patina is richly evocative of ink and the intense emotions of sitting reading under the stars – perhaps some verses by the likes of Byron or Shelley, the great dandies who took Romantic poetry to new heights.
Ice Gold has the warm, singular gleam of noble gold. It’s the patina of those glorious days towards summer’s end, and also the golden shimmer of certain trees in autumn.
That brings us to harvest season, and Saint Émilion, a deep burgundy shade honouring the exceptional wines of France’s Bordeaux region. This is a new colour, a lighter version of the Saint Émilion Tri patina in the Winter 2022 collection.
The fifth shade, Vigogna, also has something of winter to it, with its alternating heat and cold. The name recalls the plush wool of the vicuna, a relative of the llama that lives in the valleys of the Andes.
This patina’s underlying warm browns are enriched with cool magenta and violet. Fire and ice come together to give the shoes an inner glow.
Every model is hot-stamped with the signature ‘Berluti Rapiécé-Reprisé depuis 2005’ in tribute to Berluti’s history and the Maison’s leading light, Olga Berluti.
This, too, is what Rapiécé-Reprisé brings to life: time – in other words, luxury – along with elegance.
Berluti Editions Rapiécé-Reprisé pieces will be available in Berluti stores from September.
For more information, please visit www.berluti.com.
Berluti Editions
The Rapiécé-Reprisé Story
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. 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.
The most individualised of all in this masculine wardrobe are surely the Équilibre slippers. Rapiécé-Reprisé reissues its trio, introducing an asymmetry in these shoes: two different versions of the shoe for the right foot and one for the left. As Verlaine wrote in Art Poétique, “Before all else, music, / And for this, prefer the odd”. This poetry of imbalance is what Rapiécé-Reprisé seeks to find in the central piece of this edition, in the Luna Piena patina.
Each shoe bears distinctive, meticulously crafted patching, which infuses an understated note of urbane sophistication. This is how one achieves the measure of refinement demanded by a prestige edition. The Rapiécé-Reprisé piece that curves across the shoe’s upper is inset using a turn-and-stitch construction. First the leather is folded by hand to give it a wave shape. Next, perforations are made with a specialist tool. Then the leathers are sewn together with waxed cotton thread, in a stitching process that takes two hours and is done entirely by hand. What makes this stage so complex is the need for the stitching to be flawlessly regular: every stitch must follow the direction and curve of the wave inset, in order to achieve a perfectly clean finish.
All these shoes are designed to create the impression of having been worn for ages. They have a sense of weightlessness, thanks to the depth and suppleness of Berluti’s hallmark Venezia leather. A slimline design and straight-edged outsoles result in a highly contemporary profile, while still channelling the codes of Rapiécé-Reprisé. All the models in the capsule are made with an elegant Blake construction, which conceals the stitching while giving the shoe unbeatable flexibility.
On a final note, if time is truly to do justice to the shoemaker’s artistry, shoes also need to be taken care of. Rapiécé-Reprisé factors this in by proposing two different shoe trees. One is designed for low-top shoes and the other is slightly higher, for ankle boots. Both are tinted burgundy to match the shoes’ linings, with a varnish that accentuates the veining in the wood and enhances its natural beauty.
But there’s more than shoes to this collection. It also comprises four different models of leather accessories – E Mio, Un Jour, Toujours and Nino – as well as wallets and a belt. Once again, their names are a nuanced play on the passage of time, that fundamental law of male elegance. Designed and crafted with the same care as the footwear in this capsule, they also bear the same patinas. There are more visual echoes, too, in the emblematic hand-stitched patching that repeats across every piece and serves to add a playful twist to the staples of a man’s wardrobe.
Acid Green, a fusion of soft yellow and deep green, expresses the dynamism and vibrancy of youth. It’s the patina of spring and nature bursting into life. Luna Piena blends dark blues with a velvety black, conjuring up brief, fleeting summer nights – and how soft and sweet they are. This patina is richly evocative of ink and the intense emotions of sitting reading under the stars – perhaps some verses by the likes of Byron or Shelley, the great dandies who took Romantic poetry to new heights. Ice Gold has the warm, singular gleam of noble gold. It’s the patina of those glorious days towards summer’s end, and also the golden shimmer of certain trees in autumn. That brings us to harvest season, and Saint Émilion, a deep burgundy shade honouring the exceptional wines of France’s Bordeaux region. This is a new colour, a lighter version of the Saint Émilion Tri patina in the Winter 2022 collection. The fifth shade, Vigogna, also has something of winter to it, with its alternating heat and cold. The name recalls the plush wool of the vicuna, a relative of the llama that lives in the valleys of the Andes. This patina’s underlying warm browns are enriched with cool magenta and violet. Fire and ice come together to give the shoes an inner glow.
Every model is hot-stamped with the signature “Berluti Rapiécé-Reprisé depuis 2005” in tribute to Berluti’s history and the Maison’s leading light, Olga Berluti.
This, too, is what Rapiécé-Reprisé brings to life: time – in other words, luxury – along with elegance.
Berluti Editions Rapiécé-Reprisé pieces will be available in Berluti stores from September 2024.