Words Edel Cassidy
Synonymous with style, innovation and artisanal craftsmanship, the Ferragamo luxury goods empire dates back to 1927 and is one of the few major fashion houses that has retained its independent ownership. But the story began when nine-year-old Salvatore Ferragamo learned that his family could not afford a pair of white shoes for his sister’s first communion. With some white canvas and tools borrowed from a local shoemaker, Salvatore produced his first pair of handcrafted shoes. The rest is history.
Early life
One of fourteen children, Salvatore was born in 1898 in the small town of Bonito, in the Campania region of Italy. His father died when he was ten, so the family was largely dependent on money sent home by his older brothers and sisters who had all emigrated to the United States. Wanting to contribute to the family’s upkeep, eleven-year-old Salvatore started an apprenticeship as a shoemaker and moved to Naples to further learn his trade. There he survived on menial wages and often went hungry. At the age of fourteen, he opened his first shop in his home town with a small loan from his uncle.
Move to the United States
In 1915, his brothers persuaded him to move to the United States, and after a short time, he set up a shoemaking and repair shop with his brothers in Santa Barbara, at that time a thriving hub for the film industry. He was contracted to make shoes and boots for the American Film Company, which later became 20th Century Fox.
During this time, he took a course in anatomy at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, travelling the two hundred-mile round trip to attend night classes. He studied the distribution of the weight on the joints of the foot and discovered that the weight of the body, while standing erect, drops straight onto the arch of the foot, a small area of between one- and-a-half to two inches. This gave him the information he needed to make shoes that supported this pressure on the arches.
When the film business relocated to Hollywood, Los Angeles, he moved too and his success continued. He built up a private clientele in addition to the work he was commissioned to do for the film studios. Among the movie stars that he made shoes for were Gloria Swanson, Jean Harlow, Mary Pickford and Greta Garbo.
Return to Italy
However, after twelve years in America, he became apprehensive about the economic feasibility of entirely handmade shoes, yet he wasn’t satisfied with the poor quality of those produced by machines. He decided on a novel concept: the mass production of handcrafted shoes. He envisioned employing numerous apprentice shoemakers whom he would personally train, and he knew that the best place to find them was in Italy. In 1927 he returned to his home country and incorporated his first company, based at Via Mannelli in Florence. Employing sixty shoemakers, he began to export his products to a receptive market in the United States.
In the early years, there were many obstacles to overcome, not least his employees resisting the shift to his methods of shoemaking. The collapse of the American economy in 1929 also severely affected him and in 1933 he filed for bankruptcy.
Having endured that humiliating experience, Salvatore wanted to boost his self-esteem and set about surrounding himself with prestigious belongings and surroundings. In 1938, he purchased the historic 13th-century Palazzo Spini Feroni, close to the Santa Trinità bridge, to serve as his workshop and the headquarters of the company.
He also purchased the beautiful Villa Il Palagio di Maiano as his private residence. Up to that point, his family had been living in an apartment on the Lungarno Amerigo Vespucci, overlooking the Arno in Florence.
Salvatore faced further challenges as he went about re-establishing the business, including economic sanctions imposed on Mussolini’s Italy by the League of Nations during the Italian-Ethiopian War (1935–1936) and material shortages during World War II. Despite this, he gained international recognition and clientele, including prominent figures like Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and Eva Perón. His shoes were characterised by their elegance, comfort and unique designs. He opened salons in Rome, Venice, Milan, Genoa and Viareggio.
Wanda Miletti Ferragamo
On 9 November 1940, Salvatore Ferragamo married Wanda Miletti, also from Bonito, his home town. Together they had six children, the youngest only two years old when Salvatore died in 1960 at the age of sixty-two. Wanda was only thirty-eight and, wanting to follow through on her husband’s vision, she decided to take command of the business, despite having no experience in the industry or ever having worked outside the home.
She oversaw the growth of the company over five decades, taking it from a shoe design and manufacturing concern to a leading luxury goods house that produces ready-to-wear ladies’ and men’s collections, leather handbags, silk scarves, fragrances and eyewear. She expanded retail operations, opening stores in New York, Hong Kong, Japan, China, Mumbai and Mexico City. In 1995, she oversaw the inauguration of the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum in Florence.
Wanda died on 18 October 2018 at the age of ninety-six. Yet the legacy of Salvatore and Wanda continues. The company went public on the Milan stock exchange in 2011, although the Ferragamo family are majority shareholders.
‘I had only ever taken care of my family and suddenly I had to see to everything. Management, restocking, technical issues, tracking expenditure. I believe that all of us women, or nearly all of us, could easily run a company if we’re already able to judiciously run a household.’
Wanda Miletti Ferragamo
Dante and Beatrice,1882–1884, Henry George Alexander Holiday.
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Oil on canvas.
Among the many treasures in the Palazzo Spini Feroni is the well that Beatrice, Dante’s muse, is said to have visited. Many will be familiar with Henry Holiday’s depiction of Dante and Beatrice, in which the poet leans on the parapet of the Santa Trinità bridge, gazing at Beatrice as she passes with her friend on the way to the well. The well can still be seen in the basement of the palazzo.
Museo Salvatore Ferragamo
The Salvatore Ferragamo museum is located in the basement of Palazzo Spini Feroni, Florence, the building that served as the company’s first headquarters and store. Photographs, patents, sketches, books, magazines and wooden lasts of various famous feet document the life and work of Salvatore Ferragamo as well as the story of his eponymous company.
The museum also mounts exhibitions from time to time, not only showing the evolution of fashion over time but also highlighting the symbiotic relationship between fashion and other disciplines of creative expression such as art, design and technology. Visitors have the opportunity to engage with concepts that contribute to a deeper understanding of the ever-evolving world of fashion and its connections to broader cultural contexts.
Within Palazzo Spini Feroni, there is also an array of remarkable masterpieces from 17th- and 18th-century Florentine art. Notably, the chapel of the piano nobile boasts exquisite frescoes by Bernardino Poccetti, crafted between 1609 and 1612. It was in his studio next to this chapel that Salvatore Ferragamo created many prototypes.
On the ground floor, the entrance hall proudly exhibits medieval coats of arms representing the Florentine arts and the neighbourhood of Santo Spirito. Additionally, The Fall of the Giants (1705), a captivating marble high relief by Giuseppe Piamontini, graces one of the entrance walls.
- ‘Salvatore Ferragamo’ is published in Anthology Volume 20. Read more features from this volume or buy it now.
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