Luxury means different things to different people. It is often associated with wealth or money and is commonly manifested through a visible object, such as a handbag or a watch that blatantly symbolizes an aspirational lifestyle.

Paris-based Italian shoe brand Berluti's exclusive clientele lives "not in the luxury of appearance but in the luxury of being". Being comfortable, that is.

How often do we hear luxury and comfort being used in the same vein? Fourth-generation family member Olga Berluti believes that it is impossible to be elegant if one is not comfortable and well-shod.

"Shoes that hurt the feet are a sign of vulgarity," she says.

In 1865, cabinet-maker Alessandro Berluti arrived in Paris from Marche and worked as a boot-maker.

Throughout its history, family members have catered to men of style and substance such as actors Richard Burton, Frank Sinatra and Marcello Mastroianni, and Italian directors Federico Fellini and Sergio Leone among others.

Olga Berluti is the only female boot-maker in the world. As a teen, upon seeing Jesus Christ's feet nailed to the cross, she made it her mission to "take away the nails that hurt men's feet".

In 1959 when she joined the company to learn boot-making, women were not allowed to do stitching. Olga then busied herself with other areas of the trade, such as leathers, orthopedic studies, foot diagnosis, construction of lasts and what she loved most of all, servicing the customers.

To her, the men who wore her shoes were of greater importance than the shoes themselves.

Some of Olga's famous customers were pop artist Andy Warhol, French film director Francois Truffaut and fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.

For them and clients today, she conceptualized leather shoes as an extension of human skin and the foot. At the same time, it is a work of art. For Olga, a shoe is both a "comfortable casing and an emblematic protective armor".

And since shoes use leather merely a few centimeters thick, only the best materials should be used to protect the feet. Nothing can be too good for them.

To clients, the sensuality of Berluti lies in its fit and comfort. But the shoes are also immediately recognizable by their signature unvarnished Venezia leather buffed to a deep yet translucent patina. This leather has been researched by the company for its exclusive use and its suppleness using vegetable oil for a special tanning procedure. Its durability comes from a second tanning process using mineral salts.

Before 1980, the year Olga Berluti introduced the process of patina, customers had to be wearing their shoes for decades before they acquired the beautiful patina inherent in top quality aged, natural leather.

With the introduction of these patinas, new shoes instantly have the shimmer of well-worn shoes and they also come in colors at a time when there were only two in the market - black and brown.

Each pair of shoes takes more than an hour of a craftsman's work to obtain the final shade, which could be any color.

With research and technological innovations, today's Berluti shoes are lighter while still retaining their structure and directional style. And the only way one can break rules while being true to its heritage is knowing your product through mastery of materials and shapes.

For China Daily

(China Daily 09/16/2013 page22)