LEGEND IN LEATHER
A LOOK INSIDE THE TIME-TESTED CRAFT OF CREATING A BESPOKE BERLUTI SHOE
Nine months seems to be the common amount of time required to create precious masterpieces, both living and stationary. Namely, babies and Berluti bespoke shoes. It sounds incredible that a leather shoe would take so long, but when Patrice Rock reveals its lifespan, the nine-month waiting time seems worth it.
“The customer could keep it all his life,” says the master shoemaker of the Berluti bespoke workshop. “Of course, if he takes care of his shoes — changing the soles when they are worn out and not wearing the shoes every day. We can easily repair these handmade shoes because we know exactly how they were produced and how to take care of them.”
Earlier this month, Rock was in town to meet customers and to mark the official opening of Bangkok’s first Berluti boutique, at Central Embassy. Founded in 1895 in Paris by bootmaker Alessandro Berluti, the maison of leather’s roots in shoemaking has found itself an illustrious roster of customers from royalty to design superstars like Andy Warhol. Although the brand today offers ready-to-wear clothes as well as leather bags and accessories, the quintessential heart of Berluti remains its know-how for making bespoke shoes. As one of the four Berluti master shoemakers who fly around the world to manage fittings with customers, Rock describes his job as something of a double life: one life on the road, the other back at his workshop in Paris.
“The advantage of our job is we get to travel the world and see new cultures and food,” the 54-year-old says. “It’s getting to share our techniques and savoir-faire with the customers. The relationship with the local team and customers is very interesting and good for your balance. But after all that travelling, I’m so tired and want to switch everything off and just want to work in my workshop with no one around me.”
The nine-month-long journey to creating a bespoke Berluti shoe starts off with a first meeting between the shoe master and customer, where measurements are taken and desires discussed.
“The communication with the customer is a very important step,” Rock says of the biggest challenge of bespoke products. “The customer has to think about what his final shoe is going to look like and there are just so many details to consider, where we have to take care of the shape of the foot and meet their requests.”
Rock then returns to Paris to sculpt hornbeam wood according to the customer’s measurements. Utmost precision is required, in order to retain the dimensions of the wearer’s foot, as well as the elegant shape of the shoe. From that, a prototype will be created — a step that takes up to three months before the first fitting can happen.
“The fitting is very important before we make the final pair of shoes, because the customer must try and walk around in it first. We share what is wrong or good, whether it’s comfortable or if the arch is OK. If the fitting is not absolutely perfect, I am a bit afraid to go ahead to make the final pair. I prefer to make another fitting than to deliver a pair that is not perfect. But if it’s all good, I can deliver the final pair six months later.”
Gentlemen can enjoy dreaming up their perfect kicks from a blank canvas, although the Alessandro model, the lace-up dress shoe made from a single piece of leather with no visible stitching, is a popular go-to choice. Stunning details that boast the maison’s dexterity and expertise with leather include tattooed letterings and leather surfaces cinched into folds to resemble piercings on human skin on other models. Other personalisation options include initials, tattooed images and a comprehensive list of patina shades to choose from.
Perfected by the fourth-generation artist of the family, Olga Berluti, this final stage where colourists treat and bleach the shoe to a colour of one’s choosing is the epitome of self-expression — whereby no two pairs are exactly the same thanks to varying gradation and smoke-like effects. One of the hallmark services that come with a Berluti shoe is one patina change, where customers can jump from their initial shade of Saint-Emilion Red to Tobacco Bis Brown. After that first makeover, prices will vary between 3,000 to 5,000 baht per patina change.
As Rock demonstrates how he shaves wood off the last with his humongous, sword-like knife, he casually notes how his tool is probably over a hundred years old. “I found this knife at a vintage flea market. I don’t use other people’s equipment. I’m not used to it and it’s not comfortable.”
Quite like how there is no standardised schooling when it comes to bespoke shoes, the art of creating wooden lasts and shoe prototypes has no specific standard equipment either. Each man is on his own and left to his own wits and equipment in order to cultivate shining techniques to trump all.
Behind these exceptionally difficult-to-make shoes that require 250 different technical manoeuvres to create is also a close-knit culture of passing down secrets and techniques that will only be known to a few. Rock has been working with shoes for over 30 years (15 of them with Berluti) and was decorated with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2016 by France’s Ministry of Culture, but his expertise today is a result of learning hands-on from previous masters.
“When you start, you just observe and it is very difficult to learn,” he explains. “Before, I worked for John Lobb and I had met a shoemaster there who taught me how to be a shoemaker, how to make wooden lasts and how to talk to customers. There are no schools for these things — it is all about transmission between the older guy and the younger guy in this line of work. There are not many shoemasters because this métier is very rare. We all know each other.”
At Berluti, however, he appreciates the large manpower and the bespoke workshop’s size.
“It’s the biggest in the world, with four shoemasters travelling around and 30 people working on the shoes. It’s a very big workshop for the brand and it is very rare for bespoke. There may be lots of bespoke workshops out there, but their production is much smaller and they have only one to two people. The nice workshop, nice experience, professionals and savoir-faire are what help the Berluti name grow around the world, and the bespoke workshop is very important to that.”
Visit the Berluti boutique on the ground floor of Central Embassy.