Salvatore: Shoemaker Of Dreams (2020)

Salvatore Ferragamo was a renowned shoemaker hailing from a tiny little town, Bonito, in Italy. The 11th son of 14, how did this man become so well known for his shoes?

First made in 2020, this documentary is now available on Sony Classics and, for those with an interest, it’s a fascinating watch encompassing, as it does, the history of cinema in USA alongside Ferragamo’s own story.

In the early 1900’s Ferragamo lived opposite a cobbler where, as a young man, he would while away his days watching, fascinated, as this man made shoes for the people in the village. Ferragamo’s parents however, wanted him to be anything other than a shoemaker for this was the lowest of the low in the class of Italy.

It took Ferragamo working tirelessly for two days and nights to create two pairs of shoes for his sisters for communion, before his parents would allow him to go and work for the shoemaker. It didn’t take long for the young boy to learn what he needed and then he was off to Naples, the big city.

There, he convinces another shoemaker to show him what they know before heading home, via an uncle to get a 20 Lire advance, to set up his own store. Not impressed? At this time Ferragamo was just 12-years old!

By 1912 he had six assistants working for him, Ferragamo being the youngest of his workforce. A lot of his family, meanwhile, had moved to America and one of his brothers was working at a shoe factory. Whilst Ferragamo wasn’t impressed or interested in mass production, he wondered if he could learn something, so off he went.

Eventually he arrives in California, now 17, as the first world war is under way in Europe, Ferragamo could not return home even if he had wanted to. Instead, he begins making shoes, cowboy boots mostly, for the American Film Manufacturing Company based in California, one of the early pioneers of silent movies.

Ferragamo was a curious and passionate man and was confused as to why the shoes he made would sometimes fit as he intended and other times would not. He decided there must be something wrong with the traditional way of measuring feet. So, despite having to make a 100-mile trip, he enrolled in college to learn human anatomy.

What he learns is where the balance of a foot is placed when it is in a heel, an area he knows he must strengthen in order to give maximum comfort to the wearer. However, disaster strikes when the movie studio, his main source of income, up sticks and move to Hollywood. They invite Ferragamo to go too.

On one of his many trips to Hollywoodland, as it was known then, he is involved in a terrible car accident in which his brother is killed and Ferragamo suffers a bad leg break. It’s whilst in hospital, having his leg pulled until he can bear the pain no more, that he designs and patents a traction system to help others in his situation.

This is just one of many patents that Ferragamo would go on to file. Not just shoes or medical equipment, all sorts of things, even a “military fort” for “space defence”.

Eventually Ferragamo would return to Italy, setting up home in Florence. But his clients were still largely in America and when the great depression hit, so was his business, hard, so hard that he was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1933.

It took him a few years but he built the business back up, making and selling his shoes from a huge building in Florence with the biggest stars of the silver screen flocking to his store.

Salvatore: Shoes Of Dreams is a fascinating watch with contributions from Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin, Grace Coddington and Martin Scorsese who, it has to be said, seems a tad confused as to why he’s there, but his contribution does set the scene as Ferragamo makes his way in the emerging Hollywoodland.

Some of the cuts can be a little jarring at times and some of the home movies jump around so much you wonder if it was necessary to include them. That aside though, Salvatore: Shoes Of Dreams gives you the fascinating history of this most tenacious of men.