Salvatore Ferragamo

Italian shoemaker, one of the great shoe designers in history, a magician with footwear. He created walking fantasies as well as elegance and comfort, a craftsman of the first order.

Stocky, wavy haired, he was born to a poor farmer. When his sister had her first communion, the family was too poor to buy her new shoes so he made a pair of white shoes for her. He first apprenticed himself to a cobbler when he was nine. By the time he was 14 he had his own shop with six assistants.

He left Italy that year to travel to American, to Boston, Massachusetts to work with a brother in a shoe factory. He moved to Santa Barbara, California in 1914 to open a shoe repair shop and soon began making cowboy boots for Hollywood movie westerns. He studied anatomy to improve his skills, and did custom work in California from 1914-27, shoes that were extravagant and unique for the newly blossoming movie colony and for high fashion clients.

In 1927 he returned to Italy where he founded his industrial empire.

On 9 November 1940 he married Wanda Milletti; six kids.

Ferragamo died of cancer on 7 August 1960, Florence, Italy.