Angelo Galasso's own brand celebrates it's first successful year of trading, we look at the shoes that have made a real mark from this new brand.

Angelo Galasso is a name which not necessarily everyone knows at present, although he is sure to become a household name in the upper eschelons of the luxury goods world.  His first venture was the tailoring brand Interno 8, which still has various stores in several locations, including Conduit street in London.  the signature product from that brand is the shirts with the double layer cuff and cutaway, so you can wear your watch and always see the face, a product which was worn by none other than that powerhouse of Italian fashion Gianni Agnelli.

Following many more quietly successful years in fashion and Tailoring Galasso entered into a collaboration with the famously Flamboyant Flavio Briatore, Briatore's meteoric rise on the back of famous friends, including the Benneton company, is almost a modern fairy tale.  By the time of writing he has been sadly disgraced in the motor racing world, and his former playboy lifestyle somewhat curtailed, however when Briatore and Galasso met, Briatore was a Supermodel dating, Multi Millionaire, F1 owning bon vivant, who also did and still does own the Billionaire Club in Sardinia'a ultra luxurious Porto Cervo.

 The collaboration between the two was to create the Brand Billionaire Couture, a brand which in concept sounded like a fantastic idea, one which produced the finest luxury products in the most outstanding materials in the world, for the worlds wealthiest clients.  Galasso would be the Brains and Briatore the Marketing Wizard.  However in pratice this did not function in this way, the brand successfully produced some of the ugliest and ost vulgar eccesses around, rivalling and in many cases exceeding the gauche hideousness of Zilli, with products like Crocodile leather Umbrellas, not the handle, the actual umbrella itself, this according to Galasso was due to Briatore taking too heavy a hand and influencing the design direction, and so in 2010, after just 4 years, the two had a parting of the ways, the Billionaire Couture Brand still exists, however Galasso has nothing to do with it.

So now we come to Angelo Galasso, the self named brand, this is what Galasso wanted Billionaire Couture to be, - his words not ours - the finest luxury and exotic materials worked into understated luxurious and elegant pieces, rather than massive vulgar mink coats which are designed merely to display wealth rather than style.

And of his new brand, which comprises a complete wardrobe for the man who truly knows style and class, it is the footwear which has truly stood out and turned heads, tiny elegant details such as the corner of each shoe being shaved off, known as 'tocco mazzato' in Italian, and is to prevent the hems of trousers catching the shoes, the sole of each shoe has a little plaque with the Italian flag in enamel.  these little details, along with the fact that the shoes are made by hand in Arzano, a small town in the Campania region of Italy, by a family of Five brothers who represent the Third generation in a family of Shoemakers, ensure that both quality, and style are maintained, along with that sense you are really wearing something special on your feet.

Starting from around £480 for standard calf or suede shoes, and increasing to several thousands for some of the more exotic options, any-one interested in this brand should head along to their flagship store just behind harrods in Hans Road.