Tropic Sprockets  / Salvatore: The Shoemaker of Dreams

By Ian Brockway

From Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name), “Salvatore: The Shoemaker of Dreams” is the thorough documentary of designer Ferragamo tracing his origins from modesty to worldwide fame. [Now showing at the Tropic. Showtimes and a trailer at TropicCinema.com.] The film is breezy and affectionate utilizing personal home movies (filmed by Salvatore himself) to illustrate the dedication of this creative and authentic man, who saw the human foot as a blessed appendage, capable of poetry and grace even in its stillness.

Ferragamo was born in Bonito, Italy in 1898. By the age of 9, he designed his first shoe, captivated by the smooth sleek lines of the foot. Soon he moved into his brother’s shoe store, assisting them as needed.

He became obsessed with shoes and moved to Boston with his brother. To Ferragamo, the United States, was the land of opportunity, where others understood the divinity of feet. Boston did not prove very exciting to him, so Ferragamo moved to Santa Barbara, where he catered to a small but vibrant film community. The young Salvatore made shoes for the early starlets of Hollywood, Mae Marsh and Mary Pickford. At first, Ferragamo specialized in cowboy boots for western films.

Salvatore took anatomy classes at the University of Southern California where he further learned about the science of the foot. He became incensed by his desire for the perfect shoe. 

Tragedy struck when on a research trip to Hollywood, Salvatore was in a car accident that killed his brother and left him severely injured. Ferragamo built his body back up and opened a boutique shoe store in Hollywood which he operated in the manner of an atelier.

This film is highly detailed with great emphasis regarding the designer as a man of both creative flair and scientific precision. In the documentary Ferragamo is portrayed as a working machine. He is driven to create the flawless shoe. As a creator, Salvatore never sleeps. He is inexhaustible and relentless. Ferragamo’s dream was to create a shoe as a living component to a woman’s body —fitting with absolute comfort, that could be mass-produced—a harbinger of Andy Warhol’s multicolored Marilyn silkscreens. 

They were art objects that aesthetic-minded women had to have and the classic Salvatore Ferragamo shoe was functional candy, bright and glittering.

A highlight of the film is Martin Scorsese at his manic best as he paints Ferragamo as a modest inventor, voyaging West like other great visionaries.

In keeping with his surreal character, director Guadagnino emphasizes the designer’s famous “invisible shoe” which was composed with minimal bands of translucent cords. Also of note is the platform rainbow shoe, created for Judy Garland.

Though the viewer does not get many eccentric stories from Ferragamo himself, one does get the sense that Salvatore saw his creations as not merely shoes but things of feminine respiration that moved and flowed along with the locomotion of a woman. At one point in the documentary, the creator’s shoes are referred to as ‘creatures.’ The shoes are not just fashioned with velvet and cork, but they are beings themselves full of sway, manipulation and influence.

Ferragamo emerges as an obsessive awed by the grandeur of a foot, spellbound by the grace of a standing woman. As the documentary ends, one hears his famous quote: 

There are no bad feet only bad shoes.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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