Salvatore Ferragamo, the great Italian designer who died in 1960, remains famous for his classic shoes which combine impeccable design with ergonomic principles in an ideal marriage between fashion and comfort. His aim was to give artistic style to women from top to toe but his death meant that it was up to his offspring Fiamma, Giovanna, Fulvia, Ferruccio, Massimo and Leonardo to fulfil that dream.
One fashion item which daughter Fulvia realised is the silk foulard or neck scarf, an item which also links up with men’s ties. Silk, that most precious of fabric, that material from the embryos of worms, that exoticism from the East, that precious secret which travelled across the great silk route from east to west, that item which made Lucca, in particular, such a rich city, provided Fulvia with fertile ideas stemming from a variety of subjects, the first of which we encounter when entering yet another breath-taking exhibition in the under-croft of the mediaeval Spini-Feroni palace, dating from 1289, which Ferragamo bought in the 1930’s as the ideal fortress for his company.
The space we first encounter in the exhibition running until 8 April 2022 at the Ferragamo museum, opened in 1995, is occupied by (stuffed) tigers, tropical birds, lions, a rhinoceros and even a manta ray. Where are these animals leading us to, I wonder?
It was the natural world that inspired Fulvia for her imaginative designs printed on silk by master craftsmen in Como.
We enter different sections devoted to inspiration from flowers, birds and mythological beings. These muses are underpinned by old natural history books, Chinese prints from the Medici collection at their Villa at Poggio a Caiano and Japanese themes.
The engrossing display has a grand finale in an installation produced by artistes from Florence’s main art school in which we are presented with tableaux from different environments, the jungle and the ocean among them.
Here is an excerpt from this immersive experience.
2018 was a dreadful year for Ferragamo. Fulvia Ferragamo died in April and Salvatore’s wife Wanda followed in October, aged 96. This exhibition may also be interpreted as a memorial to them.
I have already written several posts on Ferragamo which I still find very relevant when re-read. Two of them are at
and
Woman is indeed a supreme work of earthly creation and the love Ferragamo’s family has shown in appreciating her beauty is in every way as wondrous as the celestiality which was shown to absolute femininity by Florence’s great artists like Botticelli and Ghirlandaio. Indeed, the city of the Lily nurtures ultimate exquisiteness for, as that greatest of English poets wrote, ‘beauty is truth, truth beauty.’
For more information visit the brilliant Ferragamo web site at:
https://www.ferragamo.com/shop/ita/it
(PS A Ferragamo silk foulard can be bought for as little as Euro 200.)