In the most famous movie moment of the century Marilyn Monroe, trying to keep skirt fanned by the wind , clad in shoes from Ferragamo.
Ferragamo shod the great women, great women adored Ferragamo. Marilyn loved 7 inches studs, Audrey Hepburn - simple ballet flats, Judy Garland - phantasmagoric “platform” … And for each application great master found his approach. Thus was born the unique Sophia Loren silk shoes, velvet Monroe “boats”, gold sandals of Brazilian dancer Carmen Miranda, made in 1936.
Salvatore Ferragamo was born in the late last century in the Italian countryside, the land where everyone is able to sew shoes. In 8 years he made the first shoes, at 12 - opened his shoe shop, in 16 - went to the USA and soon shod Hollywood. Pola Negri and Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson were his regular customers.
To make the perfect shoes, he learned anatomy and mathematics. He was the first who made high heel shoes comfortable to wear. He invented the wedges.
Among the Ferragamo’s inventions - sandals expositions in the ancient Roman style, that was made for a Hollywood movie in the 20-ies. Before, women had no idea how you can publicly expose the foot. And wear sandals, only after the Indian princess, for which it was accustomed to show her feet, appeared at society parties.
Work with the stars was not easy, but Ferragamo was able to remember all the habits and whims of the aristocracy. Thus, the Countess of Windsor never wore new products, and ordered a set in the same shoes of white satin to dye them to match the dresses. Marlene Dietrich wore every pair of shoes only twice. For the first lady of Argentina’s Evita Peron Ferragamo composed craziest shoes for the craziest money. Mussolini’s mistress Clara Petacci competed in the shoe passion with Evita. After her execution in the studio Ferragamo left fifty ordered and unpaid pairs.
Greta Ferragamo shoe had even Eva Braun, for what he was later accused of being sympathetic to Nazism. But he was only interested in her feet and… shoes.
In an attempt to better understand their clients master divided them on Cinderellas, Venuses and aristocratic. Perhaps it was the first in the world such a classification. Cinderella with a foot short of the 6 th (36 th) size, claimed a master, feminine and also very fond of furs and jewelry, Venus, beautiful, charming, refined and contradictory, with the aristocratic 38-m size sensitive and noble.
Cinderella were Mary Pickford and Gina Lollobrigida, Evita Peron and Ava Gardner. Venus - Rita Hayworth and Anna Pavlova, Eva Braun, and Queen Elizabeth. Aristocracy - Audrey and Katharine Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman and Lauren Bekol.
In the most famous photo, taken in 1955, Ferragamo, sits surrounded by hundreds of blocks of wood, signed the names of legendary Hollywood stars. Shortly before his death in 1960, Ferragamo had time to write an autobiography, which he called the “Shoemaker of Dreams”. After the death of Ferragamo company remained a family company and still shod Hollywood: Madonna as Evita, Drew Barrymore as Cinderella, Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi in the movie “Crouching Dragon”, Brigitte Bardot, Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep.
