Salvatore Ferragamo Museum, Fashion industry museum in Florence, Italy
The Salvatore Ferragamo Museum occupies the base of Palazzo Spini Feroni, the medieval Florentine palazzo the company has used since the 1930s. Since 2006 it has no permanent display: each year a temporary exhibition draws on the Ferragamo archive of footwear from 1927 to 1960, plus drawings, photographs and advertising sketches by Lucio Venna.
The palazzo that houses the museum was built in 1289 and is one of the oldest surviving civic buildings in Florence. Salvatore Ferragamo bought it in 1938 to use as his company's headquarters, and his family later transformed part of it into the museum, which opened in 1995.
The museum displays shoes made for figures from the world of cinema and high society, showing how footwear became part of a broader conversation about identity and style in the 20th century. Walking through the rooms, visitors can see how the work of a single craftsman from southern Italy ended up shaping what people around the world chose to wear.
Since 2006 the museum has occupied the base of Palazzo Spini Feroni and works through temporary exhibitions renewed annually rather than a permanent display, so what is on show changes from year to year. It stands on Via de' Tornabuoni, the street running from Piazza della Signoria toward the Arno and the Ponte Santa Trinita.
The cork wedge was patented in 1937, and the archive also holds uppers made of raffia, cellophane and even candy wrapping paper, materials adopted during the Second World War. The same collection preserves advertising sketches by the Futurist painter Lucio Venna, who drew the Ferragamo shoe label.
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