Born: Bonito, Italy, 1898
Died: Fiumetto, Italy, 1960
Salvatore Ferragamo's supremacy in making innovative shoe shapes was a product of his apprenticeship with a craftsman in his native Italy. In 1923 he emigrated to America and opened a shoe shop in Santa Barbara, California, making couture shoes. His client list included Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, the Duchess of Windsor and Eva Perón. He also worked with producer and director Cecil B De Mille. Ferragamo was a perfectionist and innovator. He worked with unusual materials - Cellophane, raffia, lace and crystal, as well as fish skin and sea leopard - and instigated new shapes, including the platform shoe, an ancient Chinese idea which he relaunched in 1938. Between 1927 and 1960 he produced 20,000 designs, and published his biography, Shoemaker of Dreams in 1957. He didn't care that his style was relentlessly plagiarized - Ferragamo was the original: `Elegance and comfort are not incompatible, and whoever maintains the contrary simply doesn't know what he is talking about.'
