Roberto Menichetti Named Creative Director of Tricker's, Uniting Two British Icons

Roberto Menichetti has been named creative director of Tricker's, the Northampton shoemaker founded in 1829, in a move that pairs his appointment with a majority stake acquisition alongside Turnbull & Asser chairman James Fayed. The two men invested jointly through their vehicle Blu Heartknot UK Ltd, bringing one of British menswear's most storied footwear names under the same creative orbit as the historic Jermyn Street shirtmaker.

Menichetti's résumé reads like a tour of the houses that defined the last three decades of European luxury. Born in the United States and raised in Italy, he started his career in Paris alongside Claude Montana, then moved through GFT before being selected to join Jil Sander in the 1990s. He went on to spearhead Burberry's creative turnaround, modernising its most iconic codes, then served as creative director at Céline, and later consulted for Cerruti and Ballantyne. That track record of entering heritage institutions and sharpening rather than dismantling them is precisely the brief at Tricker's.

The creative agenda is explicitly product-led. Menichetti's mandate is to preserve the signatures that define the house: its hand-made construction, traditional shoemaking expertise, and quintessential English character, while advancing comfort and everyday performance for the modern customer. Concretely, that means a renewed focus on fit, long-wear comfort, and subtle technical refinement, achieved through disciplined evolution rather than cosmetic change. Nobody is blowing up the brogue or reinventing the country boot as a chunky fashion silhouette. The intention is to make what Tricker's already does exceptionally well work harder on the foot.

The dual role is notable. Menichetti will run creative at Tricker's in parallel with his position as creative director of Turnbull & Asser, where Fayed serves as chairman. The partnership is framed as connecting two pillars of British menswear and craftsmanship, and the logic holds: one house dresses the chest, the other dresses the foot, and both operate at the intersection of English tailoring culture and serious hand-craft. Whether that proximity eventually produces collaboration between the two houses remains to be seen, but the structural alignment is now firmly in place.

Financial terms of the Blu Heartknot UK Ltd acquisition were not disclosed, and no timeline has been confirmed for when Menichetti's first product changes will reach retail. What is clear is that Tricker's, after nearly two centuries of making boots in Northampton, now has a designer-investor with a direct financial stake in getting it right.