Salvatore Ferragamo 1898-1960

A thorough exploration of Salvatore Ferragamo’s life and work: an inescapable opportunity to analyze the importance of his creativity and entrepreneurial instinct.

One hundred years have passed since Salvatore Ferragamo opened his first store, the Hollywood Boot Shop, opposite the recently built Grauman’s Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. This set the seal on the success he achieved in America, where he had emigrated in 1915. He was perfectly integrated in the film world of those years, as important directors entrusted him with the design and creation of shoes for the film stars. His customers were movie actresses and actors, producers, and directors, who could no longer do without the elegant and comfortable footwear of the “shoemaker to the stars,” as the young man from Irpinia was nicknamed. Furthermore, his persona had a certain standing in Hollywood: he sat on the city’s executive committees and lived on the same street as Charlie Chaplin. On May 4, 1923, Holly Leaves magazine pointed out just how much Ferragamo was doing for the city and its residents.

The book illustrates various aspects of his life and work, including the difficulties he had to endure during the war, which in the end resulted in incredible surges of creativity, using the limited materials available during those years of scarcity. He literally made shoes with everything, from corks to fish skin.

A wide selection of Ferragamo’s patents is also featured. Kept today in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome, these important documents testify to his boundless creativity and mastery of the trade.