Bontoni, the men’s luxury shoe brand featured on the Business of Fashion during September’s New York Fashion Week, is breaking out.

Lewis Cutillo tells us that the brand has been making great strides, albeit quietly, in the past few months. "We continue to take a quiet and discreet approach to marketing our shoes," says Lewis. "Despite that, or maybe because of it, we are finding a growing number of clients among hedge fund managers, top CEOs, and well known professional athletes and entertainers."

The Robb Report recently posted a piece on the budding brand on its New and Noteworthy blog, and several major media outlets have been making inquiries of late, as the word-of-mouth on Bontoni has picked up.

However, the new media attention will not change the company’s discreet approach to luxury. Lewis says that "magazines/editors have finally discovered us and are beginning to contact us. We don’t have any real interest to expand right now-our focus is to offer our clients the best possible product."

Sounds like a smart strategy to us.

Photos courtesy of Bontoni.

© 2007 Copyright Imran Amed – The Business of Fashion

Emerging brands usually don’t have the marketing budget and editorial muscle to build big brands and it can therefore be extremely difficult to get above all the noise and stand out from the crowd. Yesterday, I was thrilled to see two young brands partner with major retailers in innovative ways to build brand awareness.

My favourite guerilla marketers from Rodnik launched their "We are not a rock brand" tour at Barney’s New York. They played to an appreciative crowd of lucky customers and industry insiders, with their sidekick Peaches Geldof supporting Phil on vocals. The guys were understandably excited about the tour which rocks up at one retailer after another, from Colette in Paris to Comme des Garcons in Tokyo to Corso Como in Milan, over the next couple of months. 

For people who had never heard of Rodnik, it’s not likely a performance they will soon forget, what with that 80′s throwback and all that energy. Here’s a sneak preview video of their opening tour song, the surprisingly catchy "How to be Lovely":

Meanwhile, over at Bergdorf Goodman, Bontoni was holding a trunk show to allow customers to experience their exquisitely hand-made and custom-dyed leather shoes for men — the only appropriate way to promote such a unique product, allowing the customers to see it and feel it in person. The 3rd generation Italian family has only recently begun to expand the business beyond its tight circle of in-the-know customers using the combined business savvy of Lewis Cutillo and his cousin Franco Gazzani. Still, they only make between 5-8 pairs per day, so this will remain a very special product, brand buzz or no brand buzz.

It was a busy day overall as I provided Business of Fashion commentary on Rodnik’s growth spurt to Fashion Television (who were on hand to cover the Barney’s event) and filmed some footage with Anina for a new documentary on 360Fashion to be shown on America’s PBS network next Spring.

I also chatted for a while with the very personable self-proclaimed uber-nerd Robert Cringely who will be hosting the show and who is the author of blog called I, Cringely which is an excellent resource for anyone interested in entrepreneurship and technology. While Anina, Robert and I are all very different, the one thing we have in common is our nerdiness and interest in business building. It was great to bounce ideas off of each other.