That the impact of Salvatore Ferragamo is enough for a thousand and one exhibitions is a proven fact. So much so that it can be said that the exhibitions that exalt his legacy have followed one another without interruption for almost three decades, after the firm established the Ferragamo Archive in 1995 and enabled the monumental basement of the Palazzo Spini Feroni (the Renaissance massif) as a museum. in front of the Ponte di Santa Trinita acquired by the creator shortly after his return to Italy), the brand’s headquarters in Florence.
In that case, they have always tried to bring their work closer to the public with tangential alibis: art, artisan tradition, the treatment of color, brand values, cinema and photography, sustainability, women and, of course, the famous clientele (Marilyn Monroe, Greta Garbo and Audrey Hepburn even had their own particular tributes). Now, finally, the spotlight returns to illuminate the creator himself in Salvatore Ferragamo 1898-1960.
An exhaustive review of his life as well as his work, the exhibition refers to that retrospective at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence in 1985. In addition to being the first dedicated to him, it was a pioneering traveling exhibition in presenting fashion as a vehicle for messages. cultural, beyond aesthetic considerations/values.
This new approach is even more revealing thanks to a years-long investigation that has unearthed unpublished material, never exhibited, such as dozens of documents that testify to his early years or fragments of personal films, see the film shot on the ocean liner Rome during his voyage of return to Italy, in 1926.
The tour captivates from the beginning precisely because of the profusion of details that illustrate the biography of that very young Salvatore who arrived at the age of 16 in New York, in 1915, following in the wake of his brothers, ready to conquer the world. There are the immigration certificate from his landing on Ellis Island, the first savings book he opened, the seminal orthopedic patents of 1921 and 1924, the photographs of the filming that he began to attend as soon as he arrived in Santa Barbara, before that Hollywood became Hollywood…
“Certainly, Ferragamo was his first and own archivist, he saved and collected everything. That is why each piece in this exhibition is a genuine testimony of its history,” says Stefania Ricci, curator of the Florentine museum.
Of course, the exhibition abounds in this type of memorabilia that is fascinating due to its stellar association, from the wooden lasts of the actresses of the golden era of the Hollywood studio system to the shoes they wore. Also artistic displays such as the illustrations by Lucio Venna (painter of the Florentine Futurists group) used in advertising campaigns in the 1930s or technical achievements such as those 369 designs that he patented.
Although there is a reason why Salvatore Ferragamo 1898-1960 focuses especially on the American conquest of the creator: the centenary of the opening of the Boot Shop in the nascent mecca of cinema, right in front of the Egyptian theater, the first Ferragamo store in Los Angels.
“He was part of the wave of visionaries that transformed the city into a nerve center of collective imagination. “He had the firm conviction that art and industry, economy and culture, should go hand in hand as engines of transformation,” explains Ricci, who emphasizes that Ferragamo was, indeed, an immigrant, but not out of necessity, but rather to pursue a dream.
“I have plenty of time, and I know I’m going to get it. If not with this body, I will do it with another,” he wrote in his memoirs, Zapatero de Sueños, published in 1957, three years before his death. He was convinced that, in a past life, his shoes had already been his thing. And that they would be so again in the next: “We all flow with the eternal tide and the eternal tide has no end.”
