In New York, Berluti celebrates its own special relationship with America

Running from 26–31 May, 2026, the event brings together over 60 French luxury Maisons and cultural institutions, all members of the Comité Colbert, around a shared narrative retracing over two hundred years of creative resonance and artistic exchange between the United States and France. Part of that story, Berluti’s special relationship with America began back in the 1930s, when the Maison was already developing shoe lasts specifically tailored to its American clientele.

The exhibition is structured in five chapters that showcase these cultural and aesthetic connections in a series of shipping cases transformed into a cabinet of curiosities, where each object stands as both a historical artefact and a cultural emissary.

Of the sixty Maisons represented in New York, only two trace their origins back to men’s shoes before later branching out into other realms of elegance. One of these is Berluti, which, ever since it was founded in 1895, has viewed the shoe less as an accessory than as a way of inhabiting the world.

The shoemaking Maison began to forge a special relationship with the United States from the 1930s onwards, crafting lasts designed for American feet. As early as 1932, the European edition of the Chicago Herald Tribune highlighted that Berluti “specialized in American lasts”, an early sign of considering the distinctive features of this foot shape.

In the shipping case devoted to Berluti, these transatlantic bonds are represented by objects laden with history. A replica of the wooden last fashioned for Dean Martin in the 1960s stands alongside a reissue of the original 1930s Alessandro that Torello Berluti crafted in his Rue du Mont-Thabor workshop as a tribute to his father. Displayed next to them is the Alessandro 1895, launched in 2026, a contemporary iteration of this historic design, reimagined for modern-day use with a more comfortable and lightweight construction.