Hearts and Soles

The story of Ferragamo has stayed with me ever since I heard it over a decade ago: a young man from a small village in Italy moves to the United States enchanted by Hollywood,to touch the soles and steal the souls of the stars. Still in his teens,Ferragamo opened a store selling custom-made shoes to famous actors,earning him the nickname “shoemaker to the stars”. It has all the romance of a black-and-white film.

In Florence’s swishy Via Tournabuoni,where Gucci first opened shop,resides a museum like none other—Il Museo Salvatore Ferragamo is dedicated to shoes. The private museum opened in May 1995,by Ferragamo’s family (his grandson,who I’ve had the chance to meet is also named Salvatore and shares more than a name with the legend: he’s as ambitious and owns his own wineries in Italy) to document and celebrate the genius’ oeuvre. The museum is also the company’s headquarters and is located in a historic palace,the Palazzo Spini Feroni. Its façade has been designed by the brilliant Lorenzo Merlini and the interiors have just been re-done.

The entrance lobby is filled with pictures of the older Salvatore with several famous faces. There’s also a table which has the foot models of many of them— Greta Garbo,Audrey

Hepburn,Sophia Loren and the Duchess of Windsor—as Ferragamo’s method was to study the anatomy of the foot. In a book I referenced earlier,I read Ferragamo divided women according to their shoe sizes: Cinderellas had small feet,Venuses were a size 37 while the very tall Garbo was an Aristocrat.

Another room is filled with shoe boxes,and an a/v of how the shoes were actually made by hand. A table in the corner belongs to the famous shoemaker; it has a large swathe of beautiful green uncut leather on it. And a shelf nearby has his tools. I learned that Ferragamo was the first to use raffia,silk and brocade,rhinestones and crystals and embroidery on shoes,as early as the Fifties.

Interestingly,the museum goes beyond glorifying the shoemaker; it’s an encomium to shoes. Standing in front of scores of glass cases,some with shoes as old as 1924,most with colours as vibrant as Gummy Bears,is a moment of epiphany compared to seeing Botticelli’s Birth of Venus at the nearby Uffizi.

It’s all too significant as Italy is as much about Renaissance art and architecture as it is about handmade shoes (the Italians blame their obsession with footwear on the shape of the country: it looks like a boot on the map. In fact,to prove his love to his girlfriend,a crazed man broke a piece of the statue of the venerated David at the Accademia not too many years ago; he attacked David’s foot). And Florence is as much about the Duomo,the Accademia and Palazzo Pitti as it is about this beautiful space.

(namrata.sharma@ expressindia.com)