100 Most Influential People in Fashion

Fashion Influential #16: Salvatore Ferragamo

A Salvatore Ferragamo Spring/Summer 2008 advertising campaign, and a photo of actress Audrey Hepburn with Ferragamo himself. Photos via Frillr.com and TheDailyPump.com.

SALVATORE FERRAGAMO
Born:
June 5, 1898 in Bonito, Italy
Died:
August 7, 1950 in Tuscany, Italy
Celebrity fans:
Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, Eva Peron, Judy Garland, Greta Garbo, Andy Warhol, Princess Diana Beginnings.
When Salvatore Ferragamo was nine years old, he made his first pair of shoes for his sisters to wear at their confirmation. He studied shoemaking in Naples, and shortly after he opened a store out of his parents' house. One of his brothers (he was the 11th of 14 children) worked in a cowboy boot factory in Boston, so Ferragamo followed him to work there in 1914, but he stayed there only briefly before he encouraged his brothers to move with him to California. There, he opened a repair shop where he also created made-to-measure shoes, which became popular among Hollywood celebrities.

Career Highs.
His reputation among the celebrity elite allowed Ferragamo to expand into designing shoes for Hollywood films. He became the "Shoemaker of the Stars," but he was not content to stop there. He studied anatomy at the University of Southern California so he could develop a better understanding of how to make footwear comfortable and beautiful. In 1927, he went back to Italy to design shoes for some of the wealthiest and most influential women of the time. He opened a workshop in Florence that produced around 350 pairs of shoes per day.
Normally I do not institute new fashions. There are a number of dress and shoe designers who struggle to be 'different' for the sake of being different, meaning that they want to impose a startling new fashion line upon the woman, but if designers must wait for their customers to become conscious of new styles who, then, determines fashion?…The answer is: new fashion begin in the mind of the designer. He must not stifle all his ideas merely because the world is not yet
ready for them. I have no season.
- Salvatore Ferragamo

An ankle strap platform sandal designed by Ferragamo in 1938.
Career Lows.
Ferragamo filed for bankruptcy in 1933 during the Great Depression, due to some problems with the management of his company. However, he came back pretty quickly - in 1938 he bought the Palazzo Spini Feroni, a palace that now houses the company's flagship store and museum.

Legacy.
Ferragamo is credited with the invention of the cage heel, wedge, and platform styles of shoes. He also introduced new materials to shoemaking, including leather substitutes, raffia, jersey uppers, transparent bakelite and galalith or glass. He made heels out of corks from wine bottles and used a transparent nylon thread to create the "invisible shoe," which is now a footwear staple. He was the first to design shoes built for comfort, using aerodynamic design and building supportive arches. Ferragamo left behind a company that now makes not only shoes, but bags, eyewear, silk accessories, watches, perfumes and a ready-to-wear clothing line.

Salvatore Ferragamo heels worn by Marilyn Monroe.
Get the Look.
With Ferragamo, it's all about innovation. Elegance and comfort, he says, are not incompatible. Choose shoes you can walk in that are beautiful as well. He is perhaps best known for creating the wedge sandal, so find one that works with your wardrobe. Don't be afraid to choose a bold color (Ferragamo wasn't!)

- Olivia