In the factory workshops Berluti located in Emilia-Romagna, the craftsmen are busy stitching the precious shoes that the French teams will wear during opening ceremoniesJuly 26 for the Olympic Games and August 28 for the Paralympic Games. The different stages of manufacturing were skillfully orchestrated, most often by hand.
It was necessary to develop the prototypes in the “special orders” offices, creating patterns full of technical and stylistic details, based on the designer’s sketches and then modeling the shoes on CAD software, which allows the different elements to be broken down. structural (around twenty), depending on the different sizes.
For the Blues, Berluti revisited its model Shadow — with a mesh upper (384,000 knitting stitches per pair) which easily adapts to the foot – by adding “Paris 2024” and a tricolor patina on the Venezia leather between. To adapt to the sizes of the champions, the House had to double its range of existing sizes, in particular to allow Victor Wembanyama to have a 57 model! Women will have the choice between these navy sneakers and the model Lorenzoa particularly light lambskin moccasin, specially developed for them.
The shoes are also navy, with a hand-stitched red stitch and require 9 artisanal steps, including 3 for assembly. The famous patina (tricolor for the occasion), Berluti’s trademark, has been affixed to each shoe Shadowas well as on the belts which constitute one of the elements of their silhouette, also composed of a scarf and a pocket (depending on gender) and which are the pride of the 180 employees mobilized on the project.
“Athletes are private customers”
“When we were told at the end of July that Berluti would have the chance to dress the French teams for the opening ceremony, it was an incredible joy for us, an immense pride,” remembers Vanessa Le Goff, collection director. at Berluti. We had a pretty incredible adventure. » “Especially since athletes are particular customers, with different body types, whereas we are more used to dressing people with standard sizes,” continues Agnès Fillioux, ready-to-wear production director. Our meeting with certain athletes helped us work on sizes (from 3XS to 5XL). »
In addition to the desire to stick to body shapes (if necessary, touch-ups can be carried out until the last moment), the challenge for the House of the LVMH Group (to which Le Parisien – Today in France belongs) was to find the right shapes and the right materials. “Our goal is of course elegance, but also comfort,” recalls Vanessa Le Goff. Athletes must be comfortable, not hot, whereas in July temperatures could be high, and they must not injure themselves, particularly with shoes, a few days before an event that they have waited all their lives. »
“French elegance”
For the tuxedo, Berluti, who worked with stylist Carine Roitfeld, played with midnight blue wool. “Color symbolizes French elegance,” continues Vanessa Le Goff. For the shirts (in silk and cotton), we tried sky blue, but we found that white was brighter. » Women will have the choice between a silk wrap skirt or braided pants, while the straight jacket will be sleeveless, “to lighten the silhouette and make it more feminine”.
The project was carried out “as a team” with the brand’s usual suppliers, like the jackets, made near Turin by the subcontractor Pattern. Here again, the pieces were made by hand, with particular attention paid to the shawl collar, which was enhanced with a subtle blue – white – red gradient, reminiscent of patina.
“We wanted to reproduce on textiles what we usually find on leather and for this our supplier achieved a real feat,” emphasizes Agnès Fillioux. Each collar was pre-designed according to each size, the cutting was manual, because it was necessary to respect the pattern and the placement so that there was visual uniformity. » Inside each piece, a tricolor label mentions that the outfits were created by Berluti artisans.
