Money rules. Full stop. But it is not always ruling for the good. And while I intend to become a man of wealth myself, often I find it sad when wealth swallows up greatness and therefore vow to not allow it to ever change me. While others may disagree, I believe that this is precisely what happened to Mr. Delos. Not that money changed him (this is not my sentiment here), but rather that a great monster of a company came around and swallowed him up in an offer that seemed to be too good to be true. Whatever was the case that Mr. Delos had to make that deal in his business, only that the sad thing is that you now cannot find him (on the web) even if you wanted to.
Type in his name on Google and the first thing that comes up is Berluti. Then you go on their site and you can’t find his name mentioned anywhere, which I truly find to be a pompous headed shame. As one of the greatest shoemakers still living, one would think that he is at least owed a dedicated page to promote his greatness. If I were wealthy enough to own bespoke shoes, I would go to Berluti only because I knew that Delos was there. Yet they don’t promote it. So how do you find him? While I believe something similar happened to Dimitri Gomez with C&J, one can still view his webpage to see his magic. It’s only fair (and more importantly smart for business). How many customers will now not use Mr. Delos’ great work because he is at Berluti? Probably a few…. And this is what makes it all sad, the fact that one of the greatest shoemakers to walk the earth, will now not have a name to remembered by for the new generation of shoe enthusiasts…
All pictures courtesy of En Grande Pompe
Sorry Justin, gave you a little more precisions if you don’t mind…Anthony Delos did already work with Berluti for years before they finally “bought” him… This was more or less strategic… Anthony did ALSO do work for… Lobb… so in one hand you have LVMH on the other HERMES… both they are not the best loving couple as you can imagine… so… to make the things clear they simply “indexed” him and all his staff… and so things were “resolved”… And as you pointed out… it’s true, it is not any more a matter of “people” or humanity, but simple a commercial strategy with a label of “savoir faire”… in which LVMH is worlds biggest leader… (or something like that..) Looks like we cannot associate quality with the people who realized it, but only talk about the thing called “luxe” which is completely “depersonzlized…”
I have heard, M. Delos will be attending the (recently remodelled) London Berluti store (Conduit Street) on September 11, to do fittings and take new bespoke orders.
wish that i was going to be in town!! Let me know if you meet him Rolf!
thanks for the extra info Paulus!
Hello Justin,
The news is about a year old…
yea, I know…I wrote about it then too….but that does not mean that everyone else knows…. I just saw this shoe and it brought it all back up for me…
Dear Justin, Sr.Delos can only know the actual Reasons, but I can imagine very simple one. I can understand how she must sacrifice Sr.Delos to learn the trade in its maximum height.
I can think economically bad few months are really hard to bear for a craftsman, it can lead to so hechar dreams and all the people working hard for you.
Being a great craftsman, is not synonymous with being a great businessman.
For his work can be seen clearly that is a true artist, moved by passion. This is precisely why I think his decision should not be taken by money.
but as I say this is just an assumption.
Enrile
whatever the case it was so unfortunate….
The kind of takeover and destroy (or as they would put it “democratising”) that LVMH has been doing for a long time needs to be stopped.
i agree!
“If I were wealthy enough to own bespoke shoes”
What about the bespoke G&G you got made a few months back 😀
– Suave
trying to catch me up there huh? 😉 …exchange of goods for services…still can’t personally afford bespoke stuff…wish that I could and I plan on it one day soon!
A great article. I fully share the point of view. I will add that I went to Berluti for the first time only because of Anthony Delos and thanks to the fact I was aware of this news. I am sure other could do as me if they communicated more on him.
To give you other news, he is still accessible and enthusiast, the difference is that he can now only sign the shoes “AD” instead of “Anthony Delos” which was part of the deal.
But the result is still amazing, here you will see a creation I received in july :
https://www.icloud.com/photostream/fr-fr/#A2GdIshaGxQrzK
Thanks for sharing Thibault. The shoes are lovely!
I wasn’t talking about affecting one’s talent at all but rather their ability to do as they please