Way before fashionable (and wealthy) women were clamoring for the somewhat outrageous shoes by  Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, and Christian  Louboutin there was just one single shoe designer who had laid the way for them. From 1913 onwards Salvatore Ferragamo created shoes first in Holywood, and then later back in Florence Italy, and was the absolute master of shoemaking.  His designs were way advanced for his time and were not only stunningly beautiful but also very comfortable to wear which very few  ‘high fashion shoes’ were at that time.

His life story started with very humble beginnings just outside Naples and then his rollercoaster business would go from being a financial success to failure and back again.  This new documentary by Academy Award nominee Luca Guadagnino  on Ferragamo was disappointingly  far too academic and reverential and failed to capture the romance, glamour, and  excitement of his sheer genius, 

With a solemn narration by Michael Stuhlberg, we learn of the boy genius who taught himself to make a pair of shoes at the age of 12  and then emigrated to the US just 5 years later.  He settled with his older brother in Santa Barbara which in 1915 and in those pre-Hollywood days was the center of filmmaking. It was there he and the major movie stars of the day developed a mutual love affair with the glamourous shoes which would become his hallmark.  For example here is possibly the very first platform shoe in the world that he designed for Judy Garland.

When the studios upped and left town and settled in the new area of  Hollywood, Ferragamo went with them as by then his clientele was a veritable who’s who in the movie business.  Why he left to move to Florence, Italy in 1927 is unsure, but in his new store, he was soon designing shoes for the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Eva Peron.  Despite this in 1933 he had to file for bankruptcy due to bad management and economic pressure, and it wasn’t until the 1950s that he was able to reclaim his fortune and reputation. Then he had a workforce of 700 and they were making 350 shoes per day by hand.

Ferragamo had another major asset his rivals didn’t have, and that was his close-knit family.  So much so that when he died n 1960 at the age of 62, his wife Wanda and their six children ran the company. They also created a museum dedicated to Ferragamo’s life and work in 1995 and then in 2013  established the Ferragamo Foundation to cultivate young fashion designers, based on the ideas of Ferragamo.  The truly remarkable thing is that Ferragamo is one of the very few luxury companies that was never taken over by some major conglomerate like all hos competitors.

It is only in the last few moments of this documentary that we finally get to see a stunning array of Ferragamo shoes: these images say far more than words about this astounding man and the exceptional impact he had in his lifetime

 

Review : Roger Walker-Dack

Editor in Chief : Queerguru 
Member of G.A.L.E.C.A. (Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association) and NLGJA The Association of LGBT 
Journalists. and The Online Film Critics Society. Ex Contributung Editor The Gay Uk &Contributor Edge Media 
Former CEO and Menswear Designer of  Roger Dack Ltd in the UK    
one of the hardest-working journalists in the business' Michael Goff of Towleroad