At the age of 13, he had his own shoe shop in Naples. At the age of 16, he traveled to America to work for a large shoe manufacturer. In his twenties, he opened his own shoe company in California. All these successes led Salvatore Ferragamo to become one of the most influential names in early Hollywood fashion.
From May 24, 2018, to March 10, 2019, “Italy in Hollywood” will be on exhibit at the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum. The exhibit focuses on the Italians who made a name for themselves in Hollywood in the 20th century, as well as Ferragamo’s impact on the movie industry’s fashion. Italian actors and actresses who moved to California all are featured throughout the museum.
Tickets are 9 euros per person, and the museum is open from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. every day, excluding holidays. The museum is located across from the Arno River in the Piazza di Santa Trinita, next door to the company's flagship store and headquarters.
The front room introduces visitors to the the effect Italians have had on visual arts. According to the museum, Italians moved to work in areas of agriculture, mining, timber and banking. Bank of America and the Jacuzzi were even created by Italian-Americans in California.
One large room is dedicated to Ferragamo himself with tables of his shoes and large projections to give visitors a sense of the time period he worked in. The shoes are labeled with the year Ferragamo crafted them and, for many of the shoes, the names of the Hollywood actors and actresses who donned those exact shoes. His original shoe store, Hollywood Boot Shop, was deliberately located on Hollywood Boulevard across from Grauman's Egyptian Theatre. There, he was able to cater specifically to international film stars, many who are featured throughout the museum.
Pictured above, shoes for Mary Pickford and Ruldoph Valentino are displayed to share some of the Hollywood royalty who became close with Ferragamo. He was known for the "perfect fit"of his shoes and for his creations of the invisible sandal and the wedge. For his innovative designs he won the Neiman Marcus Prize - a first for a shoemaker and also for an Italian, according to the museum. Salvatore quickly became known as the "shoemaker for the stars."
A majority of the museum focuses on Italian-Americans in Hollywood. Rudolph Valentino, Enrico Caruso, Tina Modotti and Lina Cavalieri are the four Italian artists featured in the exhibit. Each are a great example of the artistic relationship between Italy and the United States.
Ruldoph Valentino was best known for his silent films from the 1920s: "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," "The Shiek," and "The Eagle." His romantic films earned him the nickname of the "Great Lover" in America, until his early death at the age of 31, according to his biography. Valentino and Ferragamo became friends through Ferragamo's shoes and their heritage, according to the museum.
Enrico Caruso, whose blue luggage is pictured above, also had an effect on Italian art in America. Caruso was an opera singer who was born in Naples. He is notable as one of the first singers to use voice recordings, over 200 to be exact, according to Brittanica. Beginning his career singing in opera houses across Italy and then Europe, Caruso reached American fame when for 17 years he opened the opera season at New York City's Metropolitan Opera in the early 1900s. Caruso was one of the highest paid singers of his time and certainly helped to bring Italian art and talent to America.
Tina Modotti was best known for a different type of art - photography. She moved to the United States from Italy at the age of 16 where she began acting in plays and films. Later, she met an American photographer who introduced her to the new art of photography, according to the museum. Her photos included abstract ideas and shared the social struggles of people in Mexico, but Modotti's career also included herself as the subject in modeling. In Mexico, Modotti ran in the same social circles as Diego Rivera and Clemente Orozco, famous Mexican muralists, and became interested in politics which she was involved with for the rest of her career.
Lina Cavalieri was both an actress and a singer who was best noted for her beauty throughout her career. Beginning as a cafe singer, she toured Europe learning the art of opera singing. In the United States, she met Caruso in an opera they performed together, and she also came across numerous big names in opera, according to her biography. Cavalieri returned to Italy after many years in opera where she starred in Italian films and became the subject of famous portraits of herself.
Portraits and photographs of these four artists line the walls of the museum, as pictured above, and sentimental objects of these Italians, including a beaded Dior evening gown, are also included as a tribute to their work.
Italian-based movies are also featured to give visitors a greater sense of the effect the country had on American-made movies. Ben-Hur and Cabiria are two of these films. Cabiria came from Italy to America in 1914 where it became a cinematic hit, even reaching the White House. The museum noted, however, the difference between how Italians and Americans interpreted the film. Italians loved the unity the film brought during a time of a "post-Unification national identity" crisis. Differently, Americans loved the classic Roman history, but they also connected the film to the poor immigrants entering the country.
Ben-Hur, the film from 1925, is another popular Italian film featured in the museum. The museum said despite a fall in Italian-made films, American film companies continued to create films in Italy.
The climax and conclusion of the museum tour was a sound room with walls entirely covered with projections from a variety of Italian movie scenes. One large bench in the center of the room allows guests to sit and listen to the historical effect Italy had on American cinema.
Overall, the Salvatore Ferragamo museum's newest exhibit provides not only a glimpse into the shoe designer's impact on shoes in Hollywood, but the museum gives a full history on the people who made Italy's talent known in America.