Salvatore Ferragamo

357 N Rodeo Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

(310) 273-9990

Email

Website

Monday to Saturday 7:00
Sunday 12-6

“The weight of the body falls on the arch of the foot like a plumb line,” wrote Ferragamo 1925.

Salvatore Ferragamo was born in 1898 in Bonito, near Naples, Italy, the eleventh of 14 children. After making his first pair of shoes at age nine, for his sisters to wear on their confirmation, young Salvatore decided that he had found his calling. He always had a passion for shoes. After studying shoemaking in Naples for a year, Ferragamo opened a small store based in his parent’s home. In 1914, he emigrated to Boston, where one of his brothers worked in a cowboy boot factory.

After a brief stint at the factory, Ferragamo convinced his brothers to move to California, first Santa Barbara then Hollywood. It was here that Ferragamo found success, initially opening a shop for repair and made-to-measure shoes, which soon became prized items among celebrities of the day, leading to a long period of designing footwear for the cinema. However, his thriving reputation as ‘Shoemaker to the Stars’ only partially satisfied him. He could not fathom why his shoes pleased the eye yet hurt the foot, so he proceeded to study anatomy at the University of Southern California.

After spending thirteen years in the United States, Ferragamo returned to Italy in 1927, this time settling in Florence. In 1927, he returned to Florence and began to fashion shoes for the wealthiest and most powerful women of the century, from the Maharani of Cooch Behar to Eva Peron to Marilyn