From 27 October to 24 April 2025
Accepted the Artsupp Card
One hundred years have passed since Salvatore Ferragamo, in 1923, opened the first store in Hollywood, in front of the Grauman's Egyptian Theater, confirming the success he had achieved in the United States, where he had emigrated in 1915: in fact, in the large cinema hall, theatrical performances and all the film premieres were organized, such as that of The Ten Commandments directed by Cecil B. DeMille, who had entrusted the design and creation of the shoes for the protagonists to Ferragamo. From that moment, the young man from Irpinia was nicknamed Shoemaker to the stars, becoming one of the protagonists of international fashion. From that moment on, Ferragamo's production diversified into shoes for cinema, theater, and ballet.
To celebrate this special anniversary, this project was born, which retraces the history of the great craftsman and recalls the first retrospective exhibition on Salvatore Ferragamo presented in 1985 at Palazzo Strozzi, a traveling exhibition, hosted in further prestigious venues, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Museum Bellerive in Zurich, the Los Angeles County Museum in California, the Sogetsu Kai Foundation in Tokyo, the Museo des Bellas Artes in Mexico City. The Ferragamo exhibition proved to be pioneering as it undoubtedly represented the beginning of a new way of seeing fashion as a bearer of a cultural message, rich in values and meanings. The time frame examined in the exhibition Salvatore Ferragamo 1898-1960 is the same and covers the years from 1898, Ferragamo's birth date, to his premature death in the summer of 1960. However, the perspective and choice of content suggest and propose different considerations.
At that time, the shoes made by Ferragamo were exhibited chronologically as works of art, referring only marginally to the creative and social context in which they were conceived. Today, these creations are presented not only for their aesthetic value, but also as documents attesting to entrepreneurial and innovative capacity, passion for colors, anatomical knowledge of the skeleton and the human foot, craftsmanship skills, research on materials, and a multitude of inspirations drawn from the world of ancient and contemporary art and culture, which have distinguished the work and life of Salvatore Ferragamo.
From that first experience in 1985, the Ferragamo Archive was born, which collects products and documentation regarding the journey taken by the company and its protagonists, and in 1995 the Ferragamo Museum, a place dedicated to preserving and promoting the history of the founder and the brand through meetings, publications, workshops, and exhibitions that aim to project the experience and testimony of the past into the present, stimulating and influencing conversations and thoughts that concern contemporaneity.
Therefore, today's project represents the synthesis of an investigation not only on the work and life of Salvatore Ferragamo but also on the role of the company museum and the accompanying curatorial practice. It leverages new developments that on one hand highlight Ferragamo's contribution to the revival of craftsmanship and the definition of Made in Italy in the post-war period, and on the other hand emphasize how Italian design, also expressed through Ferragamo's footwear, is based on the winning combination of decorative and artisanal tradition, functionality, and technological innovation.
Furthermore, new reflections are suggested by the analysis of Salvatore Ferragamo's personal library. From the publications preserved in it emerges an undeniable and innate ability to perceive the most advanced signals of society at the time, along with a philosophy of life and work that expresses a broad and deep conception of the world, regulated by a single and universal divine wisdom.
In this way, the Ferragamo Museum, as an institution linked to fashion, which in itself represents a complex and versatile system, has expressed its purpose of keeping the dialogue between the company and the target audience vital and dynamic. Today's project represents the synthesis of these stages, comparing the object, the document, the thought, the inspiration with the exhibition that has generated, over the years, this wealth of materials and, consequently, points of reflection.
Salvatore Ferragamo 1898-1960 is therefore much more than an exhibition, we could define it as a reel of memory, an investigation into the role of the museum and the curatorial practice that accompanies it.
Piazza di Santa Trinita, 5R, Florence, Italy
Opening hours
opens - closes | last entry | |
monday | 10:30 - 19:30 | |
tuesday | 10:30 - 19:30 | |
wednesday | 10:30 - 19:30 | |
thursday | 10:30 - 19:30 | |
friday | 10:30 - 19:30 | |
saturday | 10:30 - 19:30 | |
sunday | 10:30 - 19:30 |
Always
Salvatore Ferragamo 1898 - 1960
4.00 € instead of 8.00€
From 20 December to 21 December 2025
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