Exuberant ceramic art x menswear fashion: Brian Rochefort for Berluti

 

 

The traditional idea of fashion week and fashion shows got canceled. Kris Van Assche says it is a once in lifetime occasion to actually give people the background of a new collection.

Paris Fashion Week Men’s Spring/Summer 2021 went all-digital in the Covid-19 context. LVMH fashion houses like Berluti rethought the presentations of their ready-to-wear collections as runway events were replaced by novel online shows and special films.

Inspired by volcanoes and exotic plants, the exuberant signature of ceramic artist Brian Rochefort blends intuitively with the augmented natural texture and colour language exercised at Berluti luxury fashion Maison.

This season, Berluti’s Artistic Director Kris Van Assche adapts to the challenges of our moment in time in a long-distance collaboration with the ceramic artist and sculptor Brian Rochefort, the first creative collaboration on ready-to-wear for Berluti. This new collection whets the curiosity of Berluti aficionados as Kris Van Assche takes a familiar aesthetic and transports it with a new proposal, taking sartorial creations into unexplored territory.

The collection of garments and accessories will be fully unveiled and launched in stores in January 2021.

Berluti approaches the concept of collaborations from a supplementary and illuminating perspective. When, in 2019, Kris Van Assche partnered with the furniture house Pierre Jeanneret, the collaboration illustrated aspects of craft and colour shared by the two parties. For the evolving clientele of Berluti, the approach manifests in curiosity by association: a new proposal within an aesthetic to which the client already relates. In his collaboration with Brian Rochefort, Kris Van Assche builds on the character of Berluti in a gesture of connectivity and communication key to the time in which we find ourselves.

“Right now, collaboration feels like a meaningful way to create something new. As something of a ceramics nerd, I have admired Brian Rochefort’s expression for a long time, and am fortunate enough to own one of his works. I couldn’t be more excited to interpret his vision through the lens of Berluti,” comments Kris Van Assche. Creative Director of Berluti.

The behind-the-scenes of the collaboration was previewed in a video between the two collaborators, screened online as part of Digital Paris Fashion Week on 9 July 2020. The film can be accessed on YouTube.com/Berluti.

For 2020, Berluti also presented Signature – The maison’s first patterned canvas created by Kris Van Assche.

Inspired by the archives, the Signature Canvas blends the new Berluti logo, taken from the shoe tree of the very first pair of shoes made by Alessandro Berluti, and the undulating strokes of the iconic scritto motif, a tribute to the art of calligraphy created by Olga Berluti.

The Signature pattern is engraved on a black textured fabric that resists everyday use and is completed with Berluti’s trademark finishings – including leather details embellished with bootmaker studs that bring a metallic sparkle to each piece.

This new collection offers a variety of briefcases, cross-body bags, clutches, totes, backpacks, travel bags, and a sailor bag – all featuring the new emblematic of the Maison.