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Salvatore Ferragamo, born on June 5, 1898 in Bonito, Italy, and died on August 7, 1960, was an Italian shoe designer who worked with many Hollywood stars in the 1920s before returning to Italy to found the company making his hand-made footwear. He made his first pair of shoes at nine for his sisters' confirmation, studied shoemaking in Naples, emigrated to Boston in 1914, and found success in Hollywood with a shop for repair and made-to-measure shoes. After studying anatomy at the University of Southern California he returned to Florence in 1927, and by the 1950s his workshop employed around 700 artisans producing 350 pairs of hand-made shoes a day.
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Salvatore Ferragamowas born in 1898 in Bonito, near Avellino, the eleventh of 14 children. After making his first pair of shoes at age nine, for his sisters to wear on their confirmation, young Salvatore decided that he had found his calling. He always had a passion for shoes. After studying shoemaking in Naples for a year, Ferragamo opened a small store based in his parent's home. In 1914, he emigrated to Boston, where one of his brothers worked in a cowboy boot factory.
After a brief stint at the factory, Ferragamo convinced his brothers to move to California, first Santa Barbara then Hollywood. It was here that Ferragamo found success, initially opening a shop for repair and made-to-measure shoes, which soon became prized items among celebrities of the day, leading to a long period of designing footwear for the cinema. However, his thriving reputation as 'Shoemaker to the Stars' only partially satisfied him. He could not fathom why his shoes pleased the eye yet hurt the foot, so he proceeded to study anatomy at the University of Southern California. After spending thirteen years in the United States, Ferragamo returned to Italy in 1927, this time settling in Florence. He began to fashion shoes for the wealthiest and most powerful women of the century, from the Maharani of Cooch Behar to Eva Peron to Marilyn Monroe. He opened a workshop in the Via Mannelli, concentrating his efforts in experimenting with design, applying for patents for ornamental and utility models and some related inventions. Although he filed for bankruptcy in 1933 due to bad management and economic pressures, Ferragamo nonetheless expanded his operation during the 1950 to a workforce of around 700 expert artisans that produced 350 pairs of hand-made shoes a day.
Ferragamo was always recognized as a visionary, and his designs ranged from the strikingly bizarre objet d'art to the traditionally elegant, often serving as the main inspiration to other footwear designers of his time and beyond. Salvatore Ferragamo died in 1960 at the age of 62, but his name lives on as an international company, which has expanded its operations to include luxury shoes, bags, eyewear, silk accessories, watches, perfumes and a ready-to-wear clothing line. At his death his wife Wanda and later their six children (Fiamma, Giovanna, Fulvia, Ferruccio, Massimo and Leonardo) ran the Ferragamo company.
His most famous invention is arguably the "Cage Heel". Fiamma (Salvatore's eldest daughter who died in 1998) inherited her father's inimitable talent and came up with the "Vara pumps" in 1978.
On 1995 the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum, dedicade to footwear and the history of the company,opens in Palazzo Spini Feroni, in Florence. On December 2006 the Museum re-opening in new location on the basement of Palazzo Spini Feroni. The Museum extends over four rooms and comprises a collection of over ten thousand models of shoes created by Ferragamo over forty years, from the Twenties to his death in 1960. The Museum also has a small collection of period shoes (18th and 19th century), a collection of clothing from 1959 onwards, a collection of handbags from 1970, and a huge document archive.
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| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/salvatore_ferragamo 7/22/09 Modified by Apparel Search. |
Designer Definition (from U.S Department of Labor)
A Shoemaker at Nine, an Emigrant at SixteenFerragamo's calling declared itself early. Born in Bonito, near Avellino, the eleventh of fourteen children, he made his first pair of shoes at the age of nine, for his sisters to wear on their confirmation, and decided he had found his life's work. After a year studying shoemaking in Naples he opened a small store in his parents' home. In 1914 he emigrated to Boston, where a brother worked in a cowboy boot factory; after a brief stint there he persuaded his brothers to move to California, first Santa Barbara and then Hollywood. The Hollywood shop — repair and made-to-measure shoes — became prized among celebrities of the day and led to a long period designing footwear for the cinema, earning him the reputation of Shoemaker to the Stars. The progression is worth noticing: repair work teaches how shoes fail, made-to-measure teaches how feet differ, and film work teaches how shoes must perform under lights, cameras and long days. He learned the trade from the foot outward before he ever ran a factory. The Anatomy Lesson: Why Beautiful Shoes HurtSuccess left him dissatisfied for a precise reason: his shoes pleased the eye yet hurt the foot, and he could not fathom why. His response was scientific rather than artistic. He studied anatomy at the University of Southern California, to learn how the foot bears weight, where it bends and what a shoe must support. That decision separates him from designers who treat the shoe as sculpture. For Ferragamo the shoe was a structure built around a living mechanism, and comfort was an engineering problem with an anatomical answer. The innovations that followed — the wedge heel, which spreads the body's weight along the whole sole, and the cage heel, arguably his most famous invention — came from that way of thinking, as did his habit of applying for patents for ornamental and utility models. He protected his inventions as an inventor does, because he understood them as inventions and not only as styles. Florence, Bankruptcy and 700 ArtisansAfter thirteen years in the United States he returned to Italy in 1927 and settled in Florence, fashioning shoes for women including the Maharani of Cooch Behar, Eva Peron and Marilyn Monroe, from a workshop in the Via Mannelli devoted to experimenting with design. The setback came in 1933, when he filed for bankruptcy because of bad management and economic pressures — a reminder that the inventor and the administrator were different people, and the business nearly failed for the second skill rather than the first. The recovery defines the mature company: by the 1950s his operation had expanded to around 700 expert artisans producing 350 pairs of hand-made shoes a day. That ratio — two artisans per pair per day — states the product better than any advertisement: industrial scale achieved without surrendering hand production. Ferragamo died in 1960 at 62, and the company passed to his wife Wanda, who led the group from 1960, and later to their six children, among them Ferruccio as president, Massimo leading the American company, Fulvia running silk accessories, and Fiamma, his eldest daughter, who inherited his talent and created the Vara pumps in 1978 before her death in 1998. The house expanded from shoes into bags, eyewear, silk accessories, watches, perfumes and ready-to-wear, and in 1995 the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum opened in Palazzo Spini Feroni in Florence, holding over ten thousand models of shoes created across forty years. A museum of ten thousand shoes is the fitting archive for a man who began at nine years old with one pair for his sisters: every decade of the work between those two facts was spent asking how a shoe could be both beautiful and kind to the foot that wore it. Common QuestionsWhat inventions is Salvatore Ferragamo known for?His scientific and creative approach to shoes produced innovations including the wedge heel and the cage heel, the latter described as arguably his most famous invention. He applied for patents for ornamental and utility models and related inventions. Why did Ferragamo study anatomy?His Hollywood shoes pleased the eye yet hurt the foot, and he could not accept the contradiction. He studied anatomy at the University of Southern California to understand the foot he was building for, then returned to Italy in 1927. What happened to the Ferragamo company after his death in 1960?His wife Wanda and later their six children ran the company, which expanded into luxury shoes, bags, eyewear, silk accessories, watches, perfumes and ready-to-wear. His eldest daughter Fiamma created the Vara pumps in 1978. More to Explore
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