The eleventh of fourteen children, Salvatore Ferragamo was born in 1898 in Bonito, a small village 100 kilometres from Naples. Even as a child, Salvatore showed a great passion for shoes: at the age of 11 he was apprenticed to a shoemaker in Naples, and at 13 he opened his own shop in Bonito. When he was 16, he travelled to America to join one of his brothers, who was working for a large shoe factory in Boston. Salvatore was fascinated by the modern machinery and production processes, but he also saw how they could limit product quality. In the early Twenties, he moved to Santa Barbara, California, where he opened a shoemaking and repair shop. California was an exciting place to be at that time, with the new film industry booming. Salvatore began designing and making shoes for the movies. Meanwhile, in his ongoing search for shoes with the perfect fit, he studied human anatomy, chemical engineering and mathematics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 1927 Ferragamo decided to return to his native Italy and chose to settle in Florence, a city known for its many skilled craftsmen. From his Florentine workshop – in which he adapted the assembly line system to his workers’ highly specialised and strictly manual work – Salvatore launched a constant flow of exports to the United States.

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