L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 10 THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 2016 L'Italo-Americano Salvatore Ferragamo Lives On... W hen he died in 1960, everyone feared that his immense artistic and entrepreneurial patrimony would be dispersed among family disputes and economic claims. Instead, this did not happen. The label founded by Salvatore Ferragamo survived by his ances- tors and gained new energy from his wife Wanda and their six chil- dren. Today, the label Ferragamo represents one of the most long- lived limited panorama of the elite in the world of fashion, giv- ing to history an intuition and a tenacity beyond the norm. Born in 1898 in Bonito, a small town located in the province of Avellino, Salvatore was the eleventh of fourteen chil- dren in his family. In the early years of the twentieth century for a family of this size, living in a corner of Italy detached from economic opportunities, could leave only one choice: that of emigrating and leaving room for those who stayed behind. After his first years of elemen- tary school, Salvatore decided to take up the craft of shoemaking, a profession considered among the most humble in southern Italy at the beginning of the century. This passion of his came about when he was making shoes for his sis- ters, and it would never again leave him. Although his family opposed this, being a field which would give no future for their 11 year- old, Salvatore dropped out of school in third grade and was taken on as an apprentice to a renowned shoemaker in Naples. It would only be two years later that he would become the owner of a small shop in Bonito, creat- ing his first custom-made shoes for women. His intention was to give dignity to this craft through the research of functional and aesthetic perfection, so the young Ferragamo began learning the secrets of the trade and joined his brothers in the United States in 1915, at the time when Italy was about to become involved in the nightmare of WWI. The young Ferragamo found his first job in a shoe factory in Boston, the city in which the boy from the Irpinia area of Campania learned to deal with industrial technology. Ferragamo sensed the great potential of industrialization of the shoe business, but decided to refuse this kind of approach with the art of shoes and decided to move to the west coast of the United States, choosing California. Salvatore's brothers lived in Santa Barbara, who, over- taken by the enthusiasm of their brother's resourcefulness, accept- ed to go into business with him. The Ferragamo brothers opened their first shoe repair shop which quickly found great success. In a city that was experiencing the excitement of the film industry, in constant and impetuous expan- sion, the young Irpinian realized the potential of a new business endeavor and left the shop in Santa Barbara to his brothers, focusing on a new approach, the design of footwear for movies. From his hands we begin to see the rise of cowboy boots and Roman and Egyptian sandals, products that captivated the actors even beyond their specific func- tion, so much so that they began ordering them for their everyday life. The great 'divas' of that peri- od discovered the Italian products of Ferragamo and have not detached themselves from them ever since. Striving for perfection, Salvatore Ferragamo studied every possible detail in order to create "shoes that always fit well" and to improve his technique, he took up human anatomy courses at the University of Los Angeles, where he acquired basic concepts for his future productions. His chemical engineering and mathe- matical courses also helped him to expand his personal knowledge in the treatment and processing of skins and of other materials, which were later used in his own creations. Following the migratory waves of the studios, in 1923, Ferragamo transferred his activity to the area of Hollywood, leaving his skepti- cal brothers behind and starting a Situated in Florence, on the basement of Palazzo Spini Feroni, Via Tornabuoni n. 2, the museum was opened to the public in 1995 by the Ferragamo family. Photo courtesy of: Museo Ferragamo LIFE PEOPLE MOVIES MUSIC BOOKS Salvatore Ferragamo studied every possible detail in order to create "shoes that always fit well. Photo courtesy of: Museo Ferragamo Continued to page 11 GENEROSO D'AGNESE Translation by Angela Di Nardo

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