Salvatore Ferragamo - I was born to be a shoemaker

Salvatore Ferragamo was born on June 5th, 1898, near Naples, in the village of Benito, in the province of Irpenia. The family of his parents had 14 children, the family was so poor that buying new shoes was considered a real holiday. And Salvatore Ferragamo dreamed of becoming a shoemaker since childhood. Everyone has their own dreams, his dream was just that. And I must say he will embody it in full, and it will bring him success.

Already at the age of 8, Salvatore sewed his own shoes. At the age of 12, he opened his own shoe workshop, he studied the craft of a shoemaker in Naples, and at the age of 15 he left for the USA. In the United States, his name was his older brothers, who lived in the city of Santa Barbara and had their own shoemaker's shop. They first put Salvatore, who came to them, as a seller, but no one forbade him to work in the workshop. Not far from Santa Barbara was Hollywood, and the shoes made by Salvatore Ferragamo soon became popular. Once director Cecile de Mille ordered 100 pairs of cowboy boots for an action movie. And Ferragamo made such good boots that they signed a contract with him to make shoes and for the whole film. In 1923, Salvatore Ferragamo was invited to Los Angeles, where he took up sewing shoes for stars.

Salvatore Ferragamo was not just a shoemaker, a shoemaker, he was also an inventor, an innovator. So it was he who invented "flat" shoes for Greta Garbo, invented the "stiletto" heel for Marilyn Monroe, and offered platform shoes for 155-centimeter Carmen Miranda. In the 1920s, he invented the Roman-style drawstring sandals that he made for a Hollywood movie.

The main invention of Salvatore Ferragamo was the wedge. And it happened thanks to the war.

Salvatore Ferragamo, having gained fame in Hollywood and sewing shoes for the stars, did not forget about Italy. And in 1928 he returned to his homeland, to Florence, where he was going to organize a network of workshops engaged in the production of footwear by hand. Salvatore Ferragamo said that “I have never seen a good pair of shoes made by car. She's too individual. " By the way, even today the Salvatore Ferragamo brand has a line of footwear that is made by hand. However, then the first attempt by Salvatore Ferragamo to organize his own production ended in failure.

He stayed in Italy. In 1936, the Ethiopian campaign began, and then the Second World War. All the high-quality steel from which Salvatore made the instep supports were requisitioned for military needs. The instep supports began to break, the heels began to wobble, and the ladies brought the shoes back. Salvatore Ferragamo repaired them over and over again, but realized that it was a vicious circle. And then he fills the space between the heel and the toe of the shoe with cork wood from Sardinia. The shoes looked strange and unusual. This is how the wedge heel appeared, which soon became fashionable.

After the war, Salvatore Ferragamo still manages to open his own production. His workshops were located in several palaces he bought in Verona and Florence.

There are several of the most famous Salvatore Ferragamo shoe models.

For example, the AUDREY model. Ballerinas were specially created for actress Audrey Hepburn.

WEDGE. The famous wedge heel. This suede model was created for Peggy Guggenheim, owner of the renowned Guggenheim Museum in New York.

AMERICA - Invisible sandals in sheer nylon mesh with a wedge-shaped heel. To create such sandals, Salvatore Ferragamo was "inspired" by a fisherman he once saw, who was fishing on nylon line and noticed that this line would not break, it was nylon. It was then that Salvator Ferragamo came up with the idea of ​​a new shoe. For these sandals, he received the Neumann Marcus Prize (which, for example, was also awarded to Dior and Valentino).

SALVATORE is the only male model created by Ferragamo. American artist Andy Warhol loved to wear these shoes. Today, there are models in this series, which reproduce paint splashes on the toes of Warhol's shoes.

MARILYN. Red rhinestone stiletto heels worn by Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. By the way, Ferragamo created more than 40 pairs of shoes for Marilyn Monroe, and in the famous photograph with a fluttering skirt she is posing in his shoes.

VARA. The first VARA model was created in 1978 with the participation of the eldest daughter of Salvatore Ferragamo Fiamma.

Salvatore Ferragamo, among other things, was also engaged in the creation of orthopedic shoes, at one time he attended lectures on anatomy at the University of California. And in the field of orthopedics, he also patented several inventions.

Salvatore Ferragamo died in 1960, at the age of 62. His children not only continued their father's business, but also created the Salvatore Ferragamo company, whose main office is located in Florence and today they produce not only shoes, but also clothes, accessories. perfumery.