Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams

Italian cinema luminary Luca Guadagnino tells the story of the iconic Salvatore Ferragamo, whose fancy footwear took him from the silver screen to the runway.

A precise cut through butter-soft leather. A fluid line of stitching. An elegantly tapered high heel. The making of a Salvatore Ferragamo shoe is its own kind of magic – but the shoemaker himself dreamed his way from a tiny village to an apprenticeship in Naples. Still just a teenager, he headed to the US, where he became an in-demand Hollywood costumer, shoeing everyone from Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson to Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino. Navigating the turmoil of the Great Depression, fascism and war, Ferragamo began his second act: as an innovative designer who experimented with new forms and materials.

Filled with glamour, the beauty of craftsmanship and the spectre of Hollywood legend itself, this real-life rags-to-riches story is sure to tempt cinephiles and fashionistas alike. The film’s witty script is by journalist Dana Thomas – author of Deluxe, the landmark 2007 history of luxury brands – drawing heavily on Ferragamo’s 1957 autobiography, and narrated by Michael Stuhlbarg, who starred in Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name (MIFF 2017). Talking heads include fellow fashion icons Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin, cinema heavyweight Martin Scorsese, former Vogue creative director Grace Coddington, and costume designer and historian Deborah Nadoolman Landis.