“In Hollywood there would be expansion, improvement, limitless scope.” Thus, Salvatore Ferragamo recalls what prompted his 24 spring on Hollywood Boulevard 6685 The belief of opening a shop. Time has shown the then 24 year-old shoe prodigy who nine years ago carried 24 lira from Campagni Asian immigrants, exactly. Over the next four years, the store attracted movie stars looking for shoes for themselves and filmmakers looking for shoes for their productions, a development Ferragamo began at his previous store in Santa Barbara. A lucrative business. He only left 1923Hollywood for Florence, Italy, because after looking in other cities in the US and Italy, that was the only place he saw an opportunity to fulfill his ambitions of mass producing shoes of handcrafted quality. By then, however, he had become a Hollywood starlet in his own right and was friends with actors including Jean Harlow, Clara Bow and Rudolph Valentino: Ferragamo would continue to be with the The business of celebrity clients.
A century on, Ferragamo has dropped the Salvatore from its name, but remains as focused on Hollywood as its founder was – hoping to expand, improve and expand. Following a September debut in Milan, Maximilian Davis presented the brand’s first Pre-Fall collection at its Milan headquarters. “There’s a picture of Los Angeles and Hollywood where you look out from the city and you see the mountains, so you see the contrast of the mountains against the palm trees. So there’s this idea of a mix of hot and cold,” he said. One idea was to incorporate western clothing into Davis’ Ferragamo portfolio, which was actually inspired by Salvatore’s 1923 silent film The Covered Wagon.
This translates to boots of course, but also some handsome denim pieces, some with flocked velvet finishes, and the occasional dyed replica rib jersey. Davis further fortifies his cleaner, minimal spring formwork with fluffy shearling. Viscose cady in scarf dresses and blouses took on plaid; along with pleated miniskirts, the repertoire was played to audience demand. His focus on jewel-like embellishments and patches for tiny spaces fell this season on polished metal or leather buckles, leather patches on leather skirts and formidable gold handbag straps. Several stories from the debut season enjoyed sequels here, including nylon blazer looks and others in the fiery red the designer is working on for the label. Eel skin is used to create sleek, decidedly sexy pieces with a hint of kink that softly creaks with movement. You can see this pre-fall collection bringing star pieces to a wide variety of wardrobes.
Davis says building a VIP client base, as Salvatore once did, is his job at Ferragamo. Asked whether this would lead to a new physical representation of the Hollywood house, he charmingly evasively answered. Today, the house has a store on Rodeo Drive, and of course, the original location was home to a Nashville chicken shop called Hot Motha Clucker.
