It wasn't just because Andy Warhol drew Ferragamo shoes for Bonwit Teller not long after he moved to New York that I had more fun in the designer's museum than anywhere else in northern Italy.
No, it turns out Salvatore was the shoemaker to the stars that I grew up with as a movie-mad kid in the '50s and '60s.
Like Sophia Loren, who tried on Ferragamo shoes before she became the first non-American actress to win an Oscar, for Two Women, two years after he died.
His creatively-documented life story hooked me, too. Born in southern Italy, Ferragamo emigrated to the United States in 1915 at the age of 17 to join his brother who worked in a Boston shoe factory. After absorbing American assembly line techniques, he moved to California and opened the Hollywood Boot Shop in an early indication of his marketing savvy.
Ferragamo shod casts of thousands in silent sword-and-sandal epics for more than a decade, returning to Italy just as sound transformed the movie industry.
He decided to establish a shoe business in Florence because it had been the capital of the Renaissance. The first-rate Ferragamo Museum is located in the basement of the Palazzo Spini Feroni, home to the luxury brand's headquarters and flagship store since 1938.
Feeling underdressed, I visited not long after reading a New York Times obituary of Giorgio Armani that credited him for creating the highly lucrative synergy between the red carpet and fashion. The writer proves my belief that history for most people begins with the birth of their own consciousness.
Let an incredible gallery of celebrity customer blow-ups, often paired with the style of Ferragamo shoes worn in them, prove my point.
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| Audrey Hepburn |
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| Ava Gardner |
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| Judy Garland |
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| Georgia O'Keefe |
Dubious royals and dictator's daughters were fans, too.
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| Ferragamo with the Duke & Duchess of Windsor |
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| Mussolini's Grandson & Daughter (late 1930s) |
But the museum also explores all aspects of Ferragamo's shoemaking, including inspiration, design, research and production although I must confess that I didn't find these quite as enchanting as the celebrity tie-ins.
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| Snakeskin |
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| Polka Dots |
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| Rhinos |
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| Sonia Delaunay |
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| Patent no. 31023 (1949) |
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| Raffia & Kidskin Sandal |
The museum exhibits his tools of the trade just as elegantly.
It turns out Ferragamo had an ace in the hole, too: his wife Wanda Miletti, a generation younger than he who, after his death at the age of 62, became the company's chief designer and expanded it. Ferragamo remained privately held until 2011, but the couple's six children still control of a majority share of the stock.
More Northern Italy
Florence
Bologna
Venice
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