There is a certain kind of detail that only reveals itself to people who are looking, and the Berluti knot is one of them. Most men tie their shoes the same way they did at six years old, a loose bow that flops sideways and comes undone on the walk to the car. Then there are the few who tie the Berluti knot, and if you know what you are looking at, you know instantly that you are dealing with someone who cares about the parts of dressing that no one is supposed to notice. That is the whole appeal. It is a secret handshake worn on the feet.
Where it comes from
The knot carries the name of Olga Berluti, the woman who more or less invented the modern idea of shoe patina and turned the house into what it is. The story, as Berluti tells it, is that in the 1970s she had an aristocratic client whose family had tied their shoes this particular way for generations. It was a family marker. You could tell someone belonged to that bloodline by the knot on their shoes, the way you might once have recognized a signet ring or a manner of speech. The client taught Olga the technique, she adopted it, and she has been passing it on ever since. That is how a private family habit became a signature of one of the great shoemakers.
The knot is not, strictly speaking, a Berluti invention. Knot people will tell you it is identical to the Double Shoestring Knot, catalogued long ago as entry 1216 in The Ashley Book of Knots, the definitive reference on the subject. But Olga Berluti is the one who gave it a name and a following, so the name has stuck, and there are worse things to be known for than the most elegant way to lace a shoe.
Why it is worth learning
Two reasons, and they are the reasons any good thing earns its place, form and function together.
On function, it simply does not come undone. The knot has a double wrap through the center that adds friction and locks it in place, so it survives a full day on your feet without the mid-afternoon retie. And yet it releases cleanly the moment you want it to, by pulling both lace ends at once, exactly like an ordinary bow. Secure when you want it, gone when you say so, no wrestling, no picking at a tangled double knot.
On a polished pair of oxfords, where the laces are on display, that clean centered bow is the difference between looking finished and looking like you got dressed in a hurry.
On form, and this is the part that matters for a dress shoe, it sits flatter and more symmetrical than a standard bow. It centers itself neatly over the vamp, the loops sit even, and it stays put rather than drifting off to one side. The laces have a disproportionate effect on how the whole shoe reads, and this is the knot that gets them right.
The honest catch: it is a little harder to learn than the bow you already know, and it uses slightly more lace, so very short laces can fight you. Give it a few tries and it drops into muscle memory, same as any knot.
How to tie it
The simplest way to describe it: you begin exactly as you would a normal shoelace bow, then instead of finishing, you feed the opposite loop through the center as well before you tighten. That second pass is the whole trick, and it is what creates the double wrap that locks everything down. Do not pull the loose ends to tighten. Pull the two loops apart, and the center bites and cinches itself flat.
Here is a clear step-by-step lesson to follow along with.
How to tie the Berluti knot · a step-by-step lesson
If you want the house's own version, Berluti keeps a lacing lesson on its site at berluti.com. One tip the demonstrations sometimes skip: if your finished knot comes out crooked, with the loops pointing toward your heel and toe rather than side to side, you have tied an unbalanced version. The fix is to make your second crossover the reverse of your starting crossover, the same principle that keeps any bow from turning into a lopsided granny knot. Get that right and it sits perfectly straight every time.
The point
Nobody is going to compliment you on your shoelace knot. That is exactly why it is worth doing. The Berluti knot is a small, private act of care, the kind of thing you do because you have decided that even the invisible details of how you present yourself are worth getting right. Most people will never notice. The ones who do are the only ones whose opinion you should care about anyway.
Dress for yourself, not the room. And tie your shoes like someone who was taught properly.
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