Berluti’s Alessandro Sartori on how to dress for success

Alessandro Sartori, the artistic director of the French menswear label Berluti, talks luxury, clothing essentials and the big mistake men make when they shop.

Alessandro Sartori at the Berluti store in Abu Dhabi's The Galleria. Fatima Al Marzooqi / The National
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How did your love for fashion begin?

It’s not like I woke up one day and said I’d like to do this. My mama owned an atelier for women’s clothing – and it was in the same building where our apartment was. So I was walking in and out of it, ever since I was three or four. Second, the region where I grew up is Biella, where there are many fabric mills. All the people I knew were working in these fabric textile companies.

And I’m lucky to have a very good hand. I was six or seven when I started to design. It’s part of my identity – it’s funny because my family name is Sartori, which in Italian means “tailors”.

You touched on heritage – talk about that in context of fashion. Heritage and craftsmanship, as opposed to seasonal trends.

I love to work in a brand such as this that has a past – and then you modernise the past to create the future. It’s that tension that you create between two different energies: strong craft and a modern approach to silhouette and colour. This is Berluti’s strength – an antique production approach but with a modern design.

Another strength is that Berluti is luxe, but still familiar. How do you keep things accessible?

I try to design for real men. I try to imagine them in my head, like in a movie, like a storyboard. Each season is a chapter and the character is this man who is elegant, with a lot of charm, a strong style and a lot of personal attitude.

Do you have specific men in mind?

Absolutely – some famous friends of the brand: Bryan Ferry, Andrea Casiraghi, Pierre ­Casiraghi, Jeremy Irons, Maurizio Cattelan – they’re all different but they’re all strong characters. I’m also inspired by a lot of customers who we see every day in our stores.

In what way?

I follow a lot of them, but not like a stalker [laughs]. I walk around Paris and sometimes I see a man with a Berluti bag or Berluti shoes – and I watch how he moves.

Let’s move on to the business side: what is Berluti’s place in today’s luxury market?

First of all, I consider luxury not the cost of the product or the exclusivity. I consider luxury the time it takes for the artisan to make the product with his hands. That’s luxury – not the margin you apply on the product or marketing. A bespoke suit, for example, takes 72 hours to produce. To make a boot, 12 hours, plus two hours of colouring – that’s luxury. Of course we think about numbers. I’m not obsessed, but I want to know. I don’t design thinking about numbers.

Do you believe in the concept of cost-per-wear? You can get a cheap shirt in any shop but you don’t know how long it will last – and then you can get a high-quality one from a brand such as yours.

I always suggest to go either very low or very high. If you go low, buy a simple, white crew-neck T-shirt or nylon swim shorts or rubber sandals. Why not? You go to the beach and you’ll use these things. You don’t need to go and spend 30 times that price. What I don’t suggest is to buy the middle-range brands. Normally there’s a lot of marketing, a lot of branding, but the quality isn’t good. But if you really want something special, it’s better to go to the super-exclusive brands. You get the quality that you pay for.

What’s a common mistake men make when they shop?

Quite often men are not thinking about the total picture. When you buy a pair of trousers, you should think about whether it will pair well with loafers you already own. Even if the trousers come in a nice colour, or the fabric has a soft touch, it doesn’t mean it will look good with the rest of your clothes. Ask yourself: do I have the right shoe, the right belt, for this product that I want to buy?

You’re going on a weekend trip. What’s inside your duffel bag?

Red loafers, a beautiful skinny pair of jeans or chinos, two or three linen shirts in bright colours. And a couple of accessories: a vintage belt, a vintage watch, nice sunglasses. On top of that, for a nice dinner I bring a white shirt, a blue blazer and trousers. And then a few personal items such as audio speakers, a Leica camera and my leather agenda, where I sketch.

Talk about coming to the UAE, with a new store in The Galleria.

It’s a bold and very fresh market. Every time you open in a new market, it’s much more exciting than opening in other mature markets. When you come here, you feel a sense of newness – that you can really design the brand for the market in whatever way you want to. On top of that, the quality of the place, the quality of the stores, is probably the best in the world.

What colour of shoes do you think pairs well with a white kandura?

I would suggest tobacco leather, which is not as light as beige or as dark as chocolate brown. Tobacco is a beautiful, deep middle brown which ages very well.

For more on Berluti, visit www.berluti.com. For an extended interview and our top 10 picks from the brand’s summer collection, visit https://www.thenationalnews.com/blogs/all-dressed-up