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Nice little feet
1940 | Salvatore Ferragamo models made with raffia
Source: Grazia magazine July 4, 1940/Sistema Archivistico Nazionale
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Successful Ferragamo models used to be kept in production for years, sometime for a decade, with subtle differences if not untouched (still is). The model above on the right is one of them. The photograph is from 1940 and the accompanied article doesn’t explain much in terms of materials: it just goes on and on about how good the non-leather products are and how nice they look. The scarcity of leather described as a virtue rather than a weakness. That’s the autarchic era: genuine “made in Italy”.
The same model reappeared two years later featured on the precious “Documento - Moda” of the Summer 1942: this time even the wedge is covered with the the synthetic straw hand-woven by Fede Chieti’s artisans. An actual model is kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (dated 1938-40) and another at the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum.
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1942 | Salvatore Ferragamo
Hand woven synthetic fabric (Lin-Lan) designed by Fede Cheti
Source: Documento - Moda
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1942 | Salvatore Ferragamo
Hand woven synthetic fabric (Lin-Lan) designed by Fede Cheti
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art (dated 1938/40)
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| 1942 | Salvatore Ferragamo Hand woven synthetic fabric (Lin-Lan) designed by Fede Cheti Source: Sistema Archivistico Nazionale |
Fast-forward ten years and the raffia - no more synthetic - is back in fashion competing against fine leathers and exquisite textiles. Ferragamo is at the forefront once again; after all, he was a master of that material in the first place. Our model is back in action in its original form (no hand-woven raffia on the wedge and a slightly different pattern on the vamp).
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1950 | Salvatore Ferragamo
Hand woven raffia
Source: The Courier Journal | April 11, 1950
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Ours alone …Hand-made straw shoes
Our own imports from sunny Italy
Brilliant, new straw shoes, master-designed by Salvatore Ferragamo, the amazing shoe genius whose factory is a palace in Florence, whose workers are among the most skilled shoe craftsmen in the world. Fashioned of hand-woven raffia, and so deftly, so precise in their fit, so light on the foot …
The Courier Journal (Louisville, Kentucky)
April 11, 1950
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1951 | Cool cool Raffia
Straw Ferragamo shoes at Baltimore's Hess
Source: The Baltimore Sun | May 13, 1951
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And here it comes the straw sandal on top right from the ever-surprising collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (dated 1947-50), gift of the Italian Government to the Brooklyn Museum in 1954.
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1951 | Salvatore Ferragamo
Hand woven raffia and crocheted insert
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art (dated 1947/50)
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FOOTWEAR & AUTARCHY
THE AUTARCHIC WAY OF SALVATORE FERRAGAMO
PART 1/3 | PART 2/3 | PART 3/3
MADE IN ITALY
BY LAW
SALVATORE FERRAGAMO
I N D E X
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Source: Sistema Archivistico Nazionale
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