salvatore ferragamo, the shoemaker to the stars

salvatore ferragamo, the shoemaker to the stars, will soon be a favorite of yours too. see his ideas, models, inventions ..............................................

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salvatore ferragamo
ideas, models, inventions
museo salvatore ferragamo, florence, italy
from january 9th, 2004
http://www.ferragamo.com

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the salvatore ferragamo museum is recently launching
its renewing exhibition collection by opening a new show
called 'ideas, models, inventions' .
this show concentrates on the patents and trademarks of
salvatore ferragamo, from 1927- the year he returned to
italy from the united states- until his death 1960.

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fashion
salvatore ferragamo (1898-1960), had been one of the pioneers
of fashion made in italy. for the shoemaker fashion and culture
have always been linked. ferragamo began making shoes for
hollywood stars for both on and off the set, in california in the 1920s.
the shoe after all is perhaps the most famous of fetish objects.
and if the shoe is a fetish, what could be more sexy than shoes made
for legendary stars as rita hayworth, sofia loren, audrey hepburn,
ingrid bergman, ava gardner, katherine hepburn, marlene dietrich,
and bette davis ?
'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'
(from the autobiography of salvatore ferragamo, the shoemaker of dreams,
london, 1957). '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 yeat
ready for them. I have no season”.

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architecture
it is extremely interesting and stimulating to observe the object
of salvatore ferragamo's design in relation to possible influences
from other creative fields. if we consider the variety of shoes he
created, all sorts of analogies and images from the world of design,
architecture and art spring to mind.
ferragamo experimented a range of wedges- heel and platform,
in pressed and rounded layers, sculptured and painted,
decorated with small glass mirrors using the ancient mosaic technique
or with brass grates in the form of floral volutes studded with stones,
something we would associate more with furniture, domestic objects
or contemporary architecture such as the chrysler building in new york,
the simple entrances to american cinemas with thier multicolour neon lights,
rather than with fashion accessories of the time.
indeed, his shoes are architecture on a minor scale.

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new / unconventional materials
the sanctions imposed on italy after the invasion of ethiopia in 1935
worsened the problems connected with the shortage of raw material
and energy resources and launched the autarchic programmes.
they also stimulated ferragamo's inventiveness in both the ornamental
and technological field.
ferragamo patented special systems for making leather substitutes,
systems for producing raffia or jersy uppers, heels made of transparent
bakelite, and jointed wooden soles made of galalith or glass which
imitate car wheels or reels.

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cork
ferragamo designed heels obtained by sewing together the corks
of wine bottles and then lined them with leather.
the cork wedge is probably ferragamo's most famous
invention of this period. it was patented in 1937.
this was at least two years before it spread to international
fashion as a distinctive feature of tastes of the time.
its original purpose was functional, the idea being to raise the
heel and give both the heel and the arch of the foot a stable support.

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the invisible shoe
in 1947, ferragamo designed a continuous thread upper
consisting of a transparent nylon thread-like element, which gave rise
to the invisible sandal, a classic in today's footwear.

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stiletto heel
in 1955, using a special metal pin he propped women up
on incredible slim, high heels. after studying a special support
'pillar', he invented the stiletto heel.

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art
during his career, salvatore ferragamo sought inspiration,
cues and collaboration from the most important artists of history
and of his time. he had skillfully combined a number of florence's
traditional crafts - from the splendid architectural decoration
found in wrought iron, gates, gratings, handrails of the stairs of
the neo-medieval palaces of the 19th century to the small mosaics
drawn from the byzantinism of certain local gold-work much
valued by foreigners- with the sinusoidal ornamental patterns
promoted by the viennese secession and the latest achievements
of exponents of the deco style.
but the formal research of ferragamo's models was dominated by
sinuous, curvilinear zigzaggining lines and abstract ornamental
patterns inspired by the bauhaus, cubist graphics and african
tattooes.

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industrial design
the aerodynamic, rounded off forms of certain ferragamo shoes
gave the impression of miniature versions of the aerodynamic
structures of cars and aircrafts.
his propensity for project is that of an industrial designer.
this is demonstrated by his technical papers which were not
illustrated designs a la manolo blanick but precise scale representations
with axonometric or section perspectives.
the form follows the function and stems from the industrial process
(he tackled the problem of industrialisation, which meant that
he was more than a couturier or a craftsman working to a single
item). feragamo studied every detail to create symmetries in a perfect
blend of weights and measures and anticipated pret-a-porter made in
italy by several years, possible as a result of the influence he
received from american industrial techniques.

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patents
usually, the word 'patent' does not really strike us as exciting.
it immediately conjures up ideas of documents in dust-filled rooms,
of boring technical descriptions. however, when we leaf through the
ferragamo patents, we begin to understand the sheer quantity of
his inventiveness, contained in the hundreds of ideas that expressed
his brilliant creativity.
a patent allows us to trace back the formation of an idea:
from the moment of its conception, to its design and to its application.
it offers an objective historical testimony, which makes it possible for
us to reinterpret a history we thought we had already completely
understood. a patent also provides the opportunity to analyze the
structural characteristics of designs and production models,
often when the documents have not survived and there have been
no examples produced.
like an industrial designer salvatore ferragamo patented every
idea that can be reproduced in multiples and the post-war years
of economic recovery were especially prolific times for patent
applications. in over 40 years, salvatore ferragamo has created
more than 20,000 models of footwear and took out 350 patents,
which are preserved in the central state archive in rome.

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comfort
salvatore ferragamo dedicated his life to the search for a
secret: the shoe that fits well.
when he began studying human anatomy in the united
states he found his first clue to that problem,
in the distribution of the body's weight over the joints
of the foot.
'I discovered', he wrote,' that the weight of the bodies
when we are standing erect drops straight down on
the arch of the foot. I constructed my revolutionary lasts,
which supporting the arch, make the foot act like an
inverted pendulum.'
perhaps his greatest contribution to footwear history was
the very essence of good design – combining aesthetics and function –
a beautiful shoe with a comfortable fit.

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salvatore ferragamo
was born in 1898 in bonito, near naples, italy, number 11 of 14 children.
he made his first pair of shoes at the age of nine.
his parents, poor farmers, couldn't afford to buy shoes for his sisters
who were about to celebrate their first communion.
faced with the shame of seeing them wear clogs to church,
salvatore ferragamo borrowed materials from the local cobbler
and made shoes himself. at the age of fourteen, after studying shoemaking
in nearby naples, he opened a shop in his parents home,
where he supervised six assistants as they hand-sewed women's shoes.
but four of his brothers were already in america, and salvatore headed for
boston in 1914 where one of his brothers worked in a shoe factory making
cowboy boots. but the factory's production line didn't suit his belief that
every individual pair of shoes should be studied and researched,
and he convinced his brothers to move to california. first santa barbara,
then hollywood, where he opened a shop for repairs and made-to-measure
shoes, which soon became famous. and so he began to design footwear
for the cinema.
after thirteen years in the united states, in 1927 he returned to italy.
he decided to settle in florence. in 1929 he opened a workshop in
via manelli and started to apply for his first patents for ornamental
and utility models, inventions and company trademarks.
in 1933, bad management, and above all the economic crisis that
followed the collaps of the dollar, forced him to file bankruptcy.
after the crisis he established a production line of expert shoemakers
which by the 1950's had expanded to a workforce of 700 that produced
350 pairs of shoes a day, entirely by hand.
the work of salvatore ferragamo was distinguished by the originality
of his footwear designs and by a continuous experimentation with
models, construction techniques and materials. in some cases,
his designs were simply avant-garde, while in others, they were
perfectly in line with the general mood of the times.
he died in 1960, aged only 62.

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