Confidently, tastefully classic

AT LAST: a grown-up men’s fashion show full of grownup men’s clothes.

Instead of teenagers stomping along a catwalk in attention-seeking, never-to-be bought snoods, skirts and suchlike, Berluti’s first menswear collection was shown at Paris Men’s Fashion Week on men aged 25 to 72.

They sat or stood still, playing chess, chatting or reading, so that onlookers could inspect at their leisure the work of Alessandro Sartori — poached by Arnault from the Italian tailoring company Zegna to become Berluti’s designer. That inspection revealed confidently conservative classics — long overcoats, tailored denim and cashmere, and leather patched bomber jackets — that were fashioned (by applying hand-stitched flexible insertions between shoulder and armhole) to give a lean silhouette without restricting movement.

The bags, belts and sundry accessories were made of the same lustrous, hand-burnished leather Berluti uses for its fantastic shoes, and the clothes tinted in their trademark rich burgundy and bottle green tones.

The clothes are luxurious, but practical: an oversized, cashmere coated parka treated with Teflon to make it water resistant. “We want the man to look beautiful, better and masculine but to have freedom to move,” said Sartori. “We want to have our own style and we have found the silhouette that we want.”

Expensive? The clothes most certainly will be when the line is rolled out in Berluti’s retail network, which is to be doubled in size to about 70 outlets this year and will include an in-house Berluti shop in Harrods.

But if tasteful, discreetly opulent anti-bling really is the new in-thing for the cashed-up overclass (and let’s hope so), then the newly-expanded Berluti is well set to help LVMH’S financial miracle continue.