Berluti picks up speed with a large production site in Italy

By

Dominique Muret

Published
Jul 23, 2015

Berluti is thinking big. With a view to increasing its production capacity, LVMH's luxury menswear and footwear brand has recently inaugurated a new, state-of-the-art manufacturing centre in Italy.

The group issued a press release announcing that the brand's former plant, situated in the city of Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna, has been moved to an 8,000 sq m location in the village of Gaibanella, on the outskirts of Ferrara.

According to Italian media, the investment is in excess of €10 million. The plant is dedicated to the manufacture of shoes and leather goods. The facility has been designed by the Barthelemy & Grino Architects studio. It extends across 2 ha of land and is home to a workforce of 300, compared to 150 before.

A third of the staff (99 employees) comes from the Berluti Academy, a training school established by the brand in 2010 to transmit the craftsmanship skills of the venerable fashion house led by Antoine Arnault, celebrating its 120th anniversary this year.

Created in 1895 by Alessandro Berluti, this Italian fashion house, originally specialising in bespoke footwear for men, was directed by four generations of the same family before entering the LVMH galaxy in 1993. But it was with Alessandro Sartori's appointment as artistic director in 2011 that the brand began its international expansion, extending its range with a complete ready-to-wear apparel line.

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Today Berluti features more than 40 boutiques worldwide in highly prestigious locations, from Paris to Milan and Hong Kong, by way of New York's Madison Avenue.