L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2022 www.italoamericano.org 30 L'Italo-Americano SAN FRANCISCO ITALIAN COMMUNITY T he world of fash- ion knows Salva- t o r e F e r r a g - amo as one of the brands that best r e p r e s e n t s t h e M a d e i n Italy worldwide. Yet, very few know the story behind the name and how the life of i t s f o u n d e r , S a l v a t o r e , shaped the brand in a way that very few other luxury brands can claim nowadays. Luca Guadagnino, the f a m o u s S i c i l i a n d i r e c t o r behind movies like Call me by your name, Suspiria, I am love, and many others, e m b a r k s o n a j o u r n e y t o explore Salvatore Ferragamo and takes it to the big the- ater. San Francisco's Land- mark's Opera Plaza Cinema will host the screening of Sal- v a t o r e : S h o e m a k e r o f Dreams starting on Novem- ber 18th, a Sony Picture Clas- sics release, made in English and Italian with English sub- titles. The movie opened just w e e k s a f t e r t h e c o m p a n y moved forward with remov- i n g " S a l v a t o r e " f r o m t h e brand name, shortening it to Ferragamo. L ' I t a l o - A m e r i c a n o watched the premiere of the movie and learned all about the making of this Italian brand and the portrait of Sal- vatore, a visionary founder whose passion for craftsman- ship started at a very young age and stayed for the rest of his life. A small village in the Cam- pania region takes the stage from the beginning of this d o c u - m o v i e . N o t o n l y i s Bonito Salvatore family's hometown, but is also the place where he fell in love with shoes and the idea of becoming a shoemaker. Sal- vatore was part of a big fami- ly and he was named after one of his siblings, who died at a young age. Some of his other brothers and sisters left Bonito and moved to Ameri- ca, where they started work- ing in big shoemaking com- panies. This was crucial for S a l v a t o r e , a s h e s t a r t e d dreaming of America himself while the siblings were pro- viding financial support to the entire family. A few moments into the m o v i e y o u c o u l d a l r e a d y s e n s e o f h o w t h e y o u n g m a n ' s c r e a t i v i t y w o u l d become the leitmotif of his entire life. The night before his sister's communion, Sal- vatore spent hours making a pair of shoes so she could wear something new for this b i g c e l e b r a t i o n . T h a t moment empowered him to take a good shot at helping a local shoemaker, Luigi, and l e a r n a l l a b o u t t h e "mestiere". The apprentice- ship in Luigi's shop allowed Salvatore to master all the skills in only a few months, p u s h i n g h i m t o m o v e t o Naples where he got a job in one of the most fashionable shops in the city. Back in Bonito, Salvatore presented the idea of running his own business: his shop would keep the door open all day long, and became the place w h e r e a l l t h e " s i g n o r e d i Bonito" would get their shoes made. W h i l e h a p p y w i t h t h e achievements in his home- town, Salvatore could not help but think of America. With the money he made in Bonito, he could buy a ticket a n d j o i n h i s b r o t h e r i n Boston. So it was. Salvatore purchased a third-class ticket a n d k e p t t h e 1 0 0 l i r a required to enter the country i n h i s p o c k e t , l a n d i n g i n America months later and feeling "at home as he was ready to disembark the boat." As Scorsese mentioned in the documentary, Salva- tore Ferragamo has become the symbol of how America is the place for you "to create and recreate yourself, it's not t h e p l a c e w h e r e y o u f i n d yourself." So it was for Salva- tore: when he saw the com- p a n y w h e r e h i s b r o t h e r w o r k e d , h e i m m e d i a t e l y knew he wanted something else. He decided to make his way to California and Santa Barbara was the place he called home in the late 1920s. That's where he took an interest in the human body a n d t h e c o n n e c t i o n w i t h shoemaking to a different, n e w l e v e l . W h i l e h e w a s already making shoes for Hollywood stars like Barbara La Marr, Pola Negri, Lillian Gish, he spent time learning all about the anatomy of the skeleton and the relationship b e t w e e n t h e f e e t a n d t h e body. Salvatore's shoes were an example of how you don't need to give up comfort for the sake of creativity and aes- thetics. Salvatore was a visionary m a k i n g h i s o w n d e s t i n y : while working on offering customized shoes to his cus- t o m e r s i n H o l l y w o o d , h e started filing patents on the products he made, an impor- tant element of how his way of doing business was now more American than ever. He kept doing that for years. Fast-forward, he purchased the abandoned Hollywood Boot Shop and made his own, he entered the Hollywood cir- cle and worked with and for Paramount, Warner Broth- ers, and Universal Studios as everyone wanted shoes made by Ferragamo for actresses to wear. At the peak of his fame and success though, he decided to go to Italy and bring all his knowledge back to his home c o u n t r y . I n F l o r e n c e , h e i n v e s t e d i n t h e a r t i s a n a l w o r k f o r c e a n d o r g a n i z e d workshops to teach people the art of making shoes. Out of that project, he had 18 pairs of shoes, made by a number of apprentices, based on the skills they had learned. He then went back to Ameri- ca, looking for buyers. That's when the Great Depression h i t , p u s h i n g S a l v a t o r e towards a different direction: after some difficulties, he c l o s e d t h e c o m p a n y a n d started to work to pay his debts, which he managed to cover within two years. He became the master of repur- posing materials, in a time during which the war impact- ed availability. He found a way to start again in Italy and established Salvatore Ferrag- amo in 1936, acquiring Palaz- z o S p i n i F e r o n i , w h i c h remains the company head- quarters today. He launched the Salvatore Ferragamo company based out of Florence and made the f i r s t a d v e r t i s e m e n t c a m - paign. The brand logo was created by artist Lucio Venna and, in 1938, the first direct- ly-operated stores opened in Rome, Florence, and then London. Between 1941 and 1943, Documento Moda, a fashion magazine published by the National Fashion Institute, dedicated several issues to Ferragamo, who was cele- brated for having successfully marketed his shoes in other c o u n t r i e s , e s p e c i a l l y t h e United States, promoting the quality of Italian hand crafts- manship outside Italy, and for having used the materials available during the autarchy, like hemp, cellophane, cork. Few years later, Ferrag- amo's "invisible" sandal won the Neiman Marcus award, followed by the first Ferrag- amo store in New York and the first line of bags. During the '50s, the "shoe- maker to the stars" reached the top of his success, with customers among the most famous Italian and interna- t i o n a l m o v i e s t a r s , f r o m Audrey Hepburn to Anna Magnani, from Greta Garbo to Sophia Loren, in addition to members of high society, like Soraya of Persia, the Queen of Romania, Queen Elizabeth of England, Maria Pia and Gabriella di Savoia. In 1957, Ferragamo's auto- biography, Shoemaker of Dreams, was published in English. He wanted to tell the story of his life and work in the first half of the century, between two wars and two worlds, Italy and America. Ferragamo passed away in 1960 and the company was t a k e n o v e r b y h i s w i f e Wanda, who underlines in the movie how "he did put the base for his children's education." SERENA PERFETTO Salvatore Ferragamo with some of his shoe shapes. Photo:Archivio Giuseppe Palmas. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics) The movie on Salvatore Ferragamo, the shoemaker of the two worlds, opens in San Francisco

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