Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams - A Low-Key Portrait of Passionate Footwear Prodigy Ferragamo

By Karen Gordon

Rating: B

What a life, Salvatore Ferragamo had!  The Italian shoemaker was a design innovator and craftsman extraordinaire who went from a humble village outside of Naples, to becoming a fixture of early Hollywood  and shoemaker to stars like Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren.

Then, wiped out by the Great Depression, he found himself back home again, through tumultuous decades in his home country.

Ferragamo’s remarkable life story, and the sweep of history it covers, is the subject of the low key documentary Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams. Based on Ferragamo’s memoir, it’s directed by Oscar-nominated Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name and the soon-to-be released Bones and All).

Ferragamo and his shoe-shapes of the rich and famous

Ferragamo found his passion at a ridiculously young age. He was born in Bonito, Italy a village not far from Naples that he describes as archaic, the 11th of 14 children.  As a small boy, he was fascinated by the work of the local shoemaker and would watch him for hours. His family discouraged this pastime because the shoemaker was considered the lowest of the low classes.

When two of his sisters were going for Communion and did not have proper footwear, Ferragamo stayed up all night and made them each a new pair of shoes.  He was about 8 years old. His parents were won over, and let him apprentice with the local shoemaker he’d admired so much. 

At 10, he was allowed to go to Naples to apprentice with a high-end shoemaker. By 12 he’d become so accomplished that he moved back to Bonito and opened his own shoemaking shop in the front hall of his mother’s house with two employees. In a short time, demand was such that he had six employees, all older than him.

Ferragamo’s story mirrors that of a lot of young Italians who, out of economic necessity or ambition, emigrated to the United States. At 16, Ferragamo followed his brothers to Boston to work in a shoe factory, but he disliked the assembly line approach to shoemaking.  

For Ferragamo, craft was more important than anything else. 

He persuaded his brothers to come West with him to Santa Barbara, where they set up a shop and soon came to the attention of the movie industry. It was the birth of the silent era, and Ferragamo’s beautifully handmade riding boots set a new standard in costume design.

He designed and made shoes for movies like The Ten Commandments, and The Thief of Bagdad, (where he made 12,000 pairs of sandals, including the gold curl toed beauties worn by Douglas Fairbanks, which are still, as we see in the film, in perfect condition). 

And those early stars of that era, Mary Pickford, Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, became his  personal clients.  

The key to Ferragamo’s success, seems to be, not just his devotion to craft or his attention to detail and design, but also his determination to make shoes that were not only beautiful, but comfortable and wearable. When his careful crafting didn’t always result in shoes that fit, he decided he needed to really understand the mechanics of the foot, and went to night school to study anatomy and the skeletal structure,

What he learned was a game changer that lead him to develop new ways of making shoes that were revolutionary in their time, and still stand in ours - the wedge heel, the cork sole and the cage heel, among them.

All of this continued to bring him clients who were not only interested in the quality of his work, but, enjoyed his hospitality. Ferragamo moved to Los Angeles and opened a shop that was also a bit of a social hub for celebrity clients who would drop by for a coffee or a drink. According to the film Rudolph Valentino would regularly come by for conversations in Italian over a plate of spaghetti.

There were successes, but Ferragamo’s life was marked by also lows, business failures and personal losses, including the death of his brother in a car accident when he was at the wheel.  Then the Great Depression, wiped his business out, and ended the Los Angeles chapter of his career.

Ultimately, he moved back to Italy.  Even though he was financially starting again from scratch, the resilient shoemaker had a vision of what his business could be. He bought a building in Florence, where his family still runs the business he founded. 

Guardagnino tells the story of Ferragamo with an evocative mix of family footage, photos and film footage that goes back to the early 20th century, and Hollywood’s silent era.

Actor Michael Stuhlbarg narrates, sometimes reading Ferragamo’s own words from his memoir. At times, as well, we hear the voice of Ferragamo from an interview recorded in the 1950s. 

To get at his impact, Guardagnino turns to a series of experts, from Hollywood historians, to costume designers to cultural curators. Filmmaker Martin Scorsese, shoe designers Manolo Blahnik, and Christian Louboutin, costume designer Deborah Nadoolman, writer and filmmaker Grace Coddington, and fashion writer, critic and editor Suzy Menkes put Ferragamo’s legacy in perspective.  

His late wife Wanda, their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, also talk about his life, his influence and his legacy. 

Ferragamo died in 1960 at the relatively young age of 62. But what a life he lived. Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams is a study of a man who found his passion early in life and lived it with commitment.

Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams.  Directed by Luca Guardagnino, featuring Michael Stuhlbarg, Martin Scorsese and Manolo Blahnik. In theatres in Toronto and Vancouver, Friday, November 18. Opens in more Canadian cities Friday, November 25.