Cerruti is first and foremost the name of an Italian family, weavers since the middle of the 1700s. In 1881, Nino Cerruti's grandfather Antonio Cerruti founded Lanificio Cerruti, a textile production business in Biella, Piedmont — the date that gives the maison its name. In 1950 the twenty-year-old Nino Cerruti inherited the family business and took over its management, and began modernising the textile manufacturer to incorporate clothing production.
Building on his experience at Lanificio Cerruti, Nino Cerruti founded HITMAN in 1957, specialising in the production of menswear. That same year he launched a men's ready-to-wear collection for the company which made waves in the fashion community, setting the standards for bespoke tailoring at the time.
In November 1967 Nino Cerruti became the first designer to launch his own label of men's high-quality prêt-à-porter in Paris: the maison Cerruti 1881. He presented his first collection at the same time as opening his boutique on Place de la Madeleine. The show highlighted a stunning array of futuristic trends that captured the attention of the fashion press, which proclaimed "1967, the year when Italian style dethroned English fashion". His innovative silhouette, embodying a sense of nonchalance and masculinity, resonated with a society increasingly engaged in business travel and seeking a more relaxed elegance.
Watches are not a footnote to the tailoring: Cerruti 1881 runs its own watch collection and sells it directly, with more than thirty references in the range. Model families are named after Italian towns and rivers — Odissea, Perugia, Brescia, Arezzo, Belluno, Ravello, Casale, Baccio, Ruscello, Leadri, Lucardo, Gresta, Filiano, Dervio, Razzuolo, Calliano, Petroio, Cavedago and Lusia among them — and the collection is organised by function rather than by line: three-hand models, date watches, multifunction pieces, duo-time models, chronographs and a small group of automatics.
Cases are stainless steel, frequently two-tone with rose-gold finishing, in sizes around 43mm, on leather, steel and rubber straps. The Odissea Master is representative of the house style: a rectangular 43mm stainless steel case with rose-gold accents, a deep blue dial, a matching blue rubber strap and a chronograph with a tachymeter scale — a deliberate break from the round case that the rest of the range favours. On the brand’s own store prices run from 229 euros for a date watch to 479 euros for a chronograph, and every piece carries the two-year legal guarantee that covers all Cerruti 1881 products sold in the EU.
