The Magical History

of Ferragamo Scarves
 SILK
The Magical History

of Ferragamo Scarves

by
Francesca Coronella
Dear visitor, The exhibition you are about to visit is called
Silk and was conceived to share the story of the
creativity, craftsmanship and technology that

welcome to goes into printing on silk, a practice that is the

pride of Italian manufacturing. The exhibition
focuses in particular on Salvatore Ferragamo’s

Museo Salvatore Ferragamo! trademark scarves. You’ll discover that scarves

can be worn a thousand different ways – as a
headcovering, wrap or belt – and that, because
of their square format, they are treated like a
painting.
The exhibition is dedicated to Fulvia Ferragamo,
Salvatore’s daughter (who passed away
prematurely in 2018). Fulvia was the first person
at the company to become interested in the
magical world of silk. She began designing
these accessories in the 1970s. They very quickly
The museum was founded in 1995 to give became one of the Ferragamo fashion house’s
the public, and young people like you in most famous hallmarks.
particular, the opportunity to find out more
about the history of the Salvatore Ferragamo
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company and its founder, who was a famous
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designer of women’s shoes, now considered
to be veritable 20th-century artworks. Every
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year, the museum organizes a new exhibition,
exploring a different chapter of Ferragamo’s
history and highlighting links with art,
fashion and contemporary culture.

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SECTION 1 The Silk Road was the most important trade
route in antiquity, connecting Asia with the

SUN YUAN Mediterranean basin and Europe. Plied by

merchants from all over the world, it refers to

& PENG YU
a number of different routes for transporting
goods (textiles, spices and other things) over
land and sea. These routes are represented on
and the Silk Road the walls.
Anyone who travelled the Silk Road could
Chimeras expect to be away for months on end, using
either wagons or ships to cover the 8,000
It’s time to step into the kilometers between the two continents,
exhibition, into the crowd of subject to dangers, unexpected events and
perils like storms or bandits laying in wait.
animals invading the first
room. Take a look at these
creatures. What strikes you
about them?

Created especially for Museo Salvatore As you might expect, in those

Ferragamo by Chinese artists Sun Yuan
days travelling was by no
& Peng Yu, the installation Were creatures
born celestial? is a series of sculptures along means easy. Moving from
with some taxidermy, the bodies of real one country to another was
animals treated using special substances a difficult, time-consuming
to preserve, exhibit and use them for
and dangerous business, still
educational purposes. The taxidermy comes
from the private collection Naturaliter it was essential to cater to
in Capannoli (Pisa) and the Museo della certain needs. Can you guess
Specola in Florence, one of the most which ones?
renowned zoological collections in the
world, assembled by Grand Duke Peter
Leopold of Lorraine in the late 18th
century to raise awareness about animals in
far-off countries.

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As well as enabling trade, these routes Take a look at the animals around
fostered contact between different peoples,
you. Focus on the ones you’re
who began to get to know one another,
compare their customs and traditions, and most familiar with. What is each
exchange ideas about science, technology one’s main characteristic? What
and religion. According to artists Sun Yuan symbolic meaning do you think
& Peng Yu, this exchange between different
they express?
worlds is the most interesting thing about
the history of the Silk Road. As a one-off
for this exhibition, the artists designed their
own scarf which is on display here.
When they began delving into Western In the drawing Sun Yuan & Peng Yu turn
and Chinese myths, the two artists perceived this process on its head, dismembering some
some similarities. Regardless of their famous Greek and Chinese mythological
Look at the composition the figures such as the Medusa (a woman with
geographical origin, it’s as if men from
artists have created. How would the past had the same inspirations, the same poisonous snakes for hair), the Centaur
you describe it? How have they way of using imaginary characters made (half-man, half-horse), and the Qiongqi
depicted the characters? by mashing up humans and animals for (a creature with the body of a tiger, buffalo
their stories. horns and bird wings).

In Sun Yuan and & Peng Yu’s personal

vision, contact between distant cultures is
prompted by curiosity about the mysterious
and the fantastic, often expressed in ancient
mythological tales and legends that have
been handed down to us today. Complete The artists “offer up” these
with supernatural and symbolic characters,
individual parts to the
narrating adventurous events and creatures,
myths are full of teachings about life and spectator as building blocks,
about how we should behave. In many cases to reassemble and create a
spanning more than just one culture, the brand-new personal character
starting point for these tales is often the
that wipes out any cultural
struggle between good and evil. Not just
men but animals, with their own symbolic distance. So, what will your
meanings, feature in such stories. creature look like?
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SECTION 2

THE FASCINATION Silk robes were once

OF CHINA AT VILLA so valuable they were
reserved solely for

DEL POGGIO IMPERIALE Chinese Emperors,

who for centuries did
everything they could
Take a look at the Silk is a precious fabric, typically used to to keep the technique This exhibit features a film
painted scenes on display
make scarves, whose fibre spun from insect of sericulture a about what life was like for
slime. Sericulture – the word that means the
in this room. What are secret! girls at the boarding school
delicate process of making silk – has a long
the characters doing? history that originated in China. There, five in the early 1960s, around the
thousand years ago, men learned to rear a time Fulvia attended. What
particular species of moth larvae (an insect
activities do you recognize?
from the same family as butterflies) that feeds
on mulberry leaves. At a certain point in their
development, these tiny larvae produce long The watercolors on display in this room Inside the Villa, the girls lived and breathed
filaments that they use to wrap themselves are from the Villa del Poggio Imperiale in an exotic atmosphere. The walls of the
up in a cocoon. If these cocoons are heated Florence. In 1765 the Grand Duke of Tuscany dormitory were covered in the valuable
up using steam and then plunged into water, Peter Leopold of Lorraine and his wife Maria fabric wall hangings and paintings that the
they soften and release their fine threads Luisa chose the Villa as their beloved summer Grand Duke had commissioned two centuries
which can be collected, woven together and residence and furnished it with paintings earlier, depicting the most important jobs in
dyed to make clothing and accessories. and textiles specially imported from China, Ancient China: harvesting rice, processing
illustrating the country’s customs and tea and, as you can see, silk-making. Fulvia’s
traditions, something that fascinated people imagination was fired up by the Oriental
in the West. Years later, the residence became world which influenced her creative thinking
a girls’ boarding school. Fulvia Ferragamo into adulthood, as you can tell from the
attended the school from the age of ten. At scarves on display in this room.
this enchanted place, not only did pupils
attend classes, they enjoyed contact with
nature, played sports, studied art, and learned
about creative handicrafts, theatre and music.
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SECTION 3

INSPIRATIONS

r i e s
libra

fil
ms
What do you think museums
the phrase “source
of inspiration” means?

There are thousands of Ferragamo scarves

in the world, each one of them depicting
different subjects. But where do the ideas
for the designs for each new collection
magazines a ph s
come from? Potential inspiration is endless,
oto g r
from works of art on display in museums ph
to objects in everyday life, from old science
books in libraries to illustrations in kids’
comics. Working with her colleagues, Fulvia
Ferragamo collected clippings, sketches and
annotations, assembling them into colorful
collages that they could use as the starting
point for the design of each scarf. Some pages
from these original collections are on display
in this room.
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Test your powers of Fulvia Ferragamo always had a passion
for avifauna (the population of birds that
observation: see if you
inhabits a specific geographical area). She
can spot the link between used to look at and photograph animals,
the sources of inspiration This late-18th-century like when she stayed in the Maremma
and the subjects on Japanese armor comes from region, near Grosseto, in Tuscany. She
learned about species she could not see
the scarves. the permanent collection of
Museo Stibbert in Florence. herself by studying them in books or
admiring them in museum collections,
like, for example, these penguins from
the Museo della Specola in Florence.

The Birds of America by J. J. Audubon is Illustrations from botanical books, such

commonly known as the world’s finest – as Hortus Eystettensis, written in 1613 by
and most expensive – book on ornithology German scholar Basilius Besler and now
(the science that studies birds). Printed at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in
in London between 1827 and 1838, it is Florence, came in very handy for studying
divided into four monumental volumes, floral subjects.
with life-size depictions of some 1065
different species.

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 Painter Bartolomeo Bimbi documented This strip of fabric shaped to be knotted
the flora of Tuscany with scientific around the neck is generally associated with
precision at the end of the 17th century. the male wardrobe, although as early as the
His compositions often feature a 1600s, French noblewomen at the court of
combination of plants in large bouquets, Louis XIV sometimes wore fluffy cravats.
baskets or garlands, as you may see from The subjects portrayed in the decorations on
this painting on loan from the Museo Ferragamo ties are tiny miniatures inspired by
della Natura Morta in Poggio a Caiano. illustrations from antique books. Once again,
the potential sources of inspiration are endless.
As with scarves, it takes a long, long time to
get to the finished design: just think, it can
require as many as 150 test sketches to come up
with a final collection of 50 subjects!

This papier-mâché sculpture

made in India in the 19th
century is on loan from Museo
Stibbert in Florence.

Not just scarves but other

silk accessories are on
display. Do you know what
they’re called?

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SECTION 4 In the artworld too, some artists
experimented by combining single Giuseppe Arcimboldo,

FLOWERS individual elements to create a new design.

Take, for example, sixteenth-century artist
Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s “composed heads”,
Vertumno, 1590

Are you familiar with in which faces are made up of flowers,

fruit and vegetables. One of Ferragamo’s
the patchwork technique? early silk printers recently told us that
What exactly is it?

The earliest Ferragamo scarves portrayed Fulvia started using in 1971, soon became a TV may have played an important role in
animals “made of flowers”, that is to say, hallmark of the Ferragamo style. As is often how these first scarves evolved. Between
composed out of a patchwork of leaves, buds, the case, the idea can be traced back to a October 1970 and February 1971, the RAI 2
petals, plant parts and sometimes even fruit, number of different sources of inspiration. TV channel showed the animated movies
combined and overlapped as in a collage or Fulvia would have been familiar with the by director Jiří Trnka (the so-called Czech
a mosaic to create new shapes and optical patchwork process, because it was one that her Walt Disney) in which the characters came
illusions. This original technique, which father used widely to design his shoes. to life out of a patchwork of flowers.

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Over time, these patchworks evolved into
scarves with floral subjects alone; all facets
of nature were represented abstractly yet
realistically.
As a child, Fulvia had a chance to learn
about and closely observe many species of
plants and flowers on the farm estate at the
SS. Annunziata boarding school at Villa del
Poggio Imperiale. Later, she pursued her
interest in botany and fed her creativity
mainly by consulting art, naturalistic and
book collections in Florence, such as the
collection of exotic plants in wax at the Scarf
Museo di Storia Naturale (Botanica). Can Fall/ Winter Collection
1995-96
you recognize the flowers in the scarves Flower
displayed around you?

Look at the preparatory

drawings on display in Scarf
this room and try to Fall/Winter Collection
2002-03
find the finished scarf Flower
to which they refer.

Making a scarf is a highly complex process.

After the initial idea, it takes a month of work
to develop the final design, during which time
Write down the name the designers make dozens of sketches and test
Scarf
of the scarf and compare drafts until they achieve the perfect result.
Spring/Summer Collection Once upon a time, the process was done entirely
1996 the drawings with the plants by hand using pencils, tempera and watercolors.
Flower
on display to identify the Today, thanks to digital technology, artists who
name of the flower in it. work in the industry also use computers.
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SECTION 5

LOOK
BACK
ANOUK

The screen plays a short film, Look Back

Anouk, which the young artist duo Rocco
Gurrieri and Irene Montini created specially
for the exhibition. Inspired by the animated
film A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Jiří
Trnka, who we’ve already mentioned because
of his patchwork flower puppets, it is a tribute
to the figurative world of Fulvia Ferragamo’s
scarves, one that straddles nature, fantasy,
rationality and magic.

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SECTION 6

Even if this “Silk Zoo” looks highly

EXOTIC Usually, a scarf is

made in a number of
imaginative and colorful, the animals are
always faithfully depicted. In the 1980s
and 1990s, before the internet, the best

ANIMALS
variations. This means ways of sourcing images of the animal
that the same design world were either old illustrated zoology
is printed in different manuals, or photographic features in
The animal world, especially exotic wildlife, color combinations. nature magazines.
is another Ferragamo style staple. Elephants,
giraffes, zebras and above all big cats with
spotted coats, symbols of elegance and grace
in motion, come to life in these prints. Take Color in this design Test your powers of
a close look at the scarves on display in this
and create your own observation: see if you
room. You may recognize the flower patchwork
technique we mentioned before. variation of the Top-kapi can spot the link between
scarf (Fall/Winter the sources of inspiration
collection 1992-93) and the subjects on the
scarves.

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SECTION 7

YOUNG TALENTS
ON THE SILK ROAD
Create your own
The themes of the exhibition and the history
of Ferragamo prints inspired Storie di Seta,
silk story
the new Ferragamo perfume collection,
made up of four fragrances dedicated to as
many different habitats: gardens, jungles,
savannahs and oceans. In this context,
in 2020, a creative project was born in
collaboration with the Liceo Artistico di
Porta Romana e Sesto Fiorentino. Five
students were invited to interpret these
scents, artistically conveying the emotions
and sensations evoked by each perfume in a
highly-personal graphic form. Their designs
have been collated in the immersive video
installation you can see in this room.

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SECTION 8

SHOES

Salvatore Ferragamo was born in 1898, in a his skills. He tried working in a shoe factory shoes. In 1927, he decided to return to Italy Ferragamo footwear and silk accessories
small village called Bonito, in southern Italy. in Boston but found the experience very and settle in Florence, famous worldwide came together in the late 1980s, after the first
From a very young age, he was passionate disappointing: the machine-made shoes for its artistic beauty and the skill of its exhibition dedicated to Salvatore Ferragamo
about the craft of shoemaking. He made his were ugly and uncomfortable! He moved to craftsmen. He lived in Florence until the end and his creations, held at Palazzo Strozzi in
first pair of shoes when he was just nine years California, where he began working in the of his life, in 1960. Salvatore always showed Florence in 1985. That exhibition was such a
old. Not long after that, he began working film industry, creating custom models for great creativity and ingenuity. He invented huge success that museums around the world
at the local village cobbler’s. After a few actors, actresses and celebrities of the day. In thousands of models, and kept prototypes, hosted it. In the following years, it travelled to
years in Naples, in 1915 Salvatore decided to 1923, he opened his own store in Los Angeles: documents, photographs, even newspaper London, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Mexico City.
emigrate to America, a distant country with the Hollywood Boot Shop. In the meantime, he clippings that illustrate his work, starting Since then, Ferragamo’s most famous shoes,
lots of factories and modern machinery that took evening classes at university to study the what has become the Archivio Salvatore patent designs, logos and advertisements
would give him the opportunity to build up anatomy of the foot and create even better Ferragamo. Shoes make up the biggest part of appear on the scarves.
the collection counting almost 15,000 models!
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Some original Salvatore Read the descriptions in your book.
Ferragamo shoes from
Can you identify the models depicted
the archive are on display
in this room. in the Bacheca scarf (Fall/Winter
collection 1990-91)? Mark them out
with an arrow or circle.

The patchwork technique was used as early

as the 1700s by American pioneers, who
cut out surviving parts of worn clothing to
reuse after sewing them together. Salvatore
Ferragamo began experimenting with this
technique for his shoe uppers in the 1920s.
It allowed him not just to salvage offcuts
from shoemaking, he could create infinite
In the early 1930s, Salvatore Ferragamo combinations of materials and colors,
created his Iride model, with embroidered producing new models such as the 1942
upper in Tavarnelle lace and colored silk. closed shoe with wedge heel that you see here.
He was the first to experiment with lace
in footwear; previously, it had only been
used for the finishings of clothing or The 1941 Diva sandal is made out of
household linens. strips of sea leopard, a fish of the North
Sea. Salvatore Ferragamo was the first
to use fish skin for footwear, in response
The Simona sandal incorporates to the shortage of materials during
a Salvatore Ferragamo patent from World War II. The skin of sea leopard
1957 for the upper, formed out of was widely used also in the 1950s after
intertwining colored cords. Look a deal was struck with the Danish
closely and you will see that the cords company that worked and distributed
are made from thin silken threads this leather. Even Queen Ingrid ordered
woven into a “herringbone” pattern Ferragamo sea leopard shoes in a variety
using a technique called soutache. of colors for herself and her daughters.

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SECTION 9 A new version of patchwork
was born. Printed garments

DRESSING IN SILK summarize, in a single

fabric, the most famous scarf
designs from years past, to all
Fulvia Ferragamo and her team’s successful silk creations effects simulating an archive
prompted the company’s designers to consider carrying repertoire. How many scarves
over the motifs on the scarfs to items of clothing. And so can you recognize on the dress?
it was: from the 1970s onwards, shirts, dresses, sarongs,
t-shirts, cardigans, trench coats and waterproof jackets
appeared in the company’s ready-to-wear collections with
designs taken from the silk prints. As you may see in this
room, these original garments perfectly express how the
Ferragamo style evolved over the years.

2000s

1970s 1980s 1990s today

Fulvia’s elder sister, Giovanna The hook logo named Gancini became the
Ferragamo, was a fashion enthusiast dominant motif on Ferragamo shirts, trench
from a very young age. She went coats, trousers, and dresses. The origin of
on to become Head of Ferragamo’s the design is uncertain. According to oral
clothing division, where she tradition, the source of inspiration was the
adopted the Marelle logo – an oval wrought iron gate of Palazzo Spini Feroni,
Scarves inspired by
shape obtained by interlocking two Wild animals and exotic scarf the medieval palace that is the Ferragamo
historical Ferragamo
specimens of the letter “F”. The backgrounds came alive on jackets company’s Florence headquarters. Fiamma
shoes turned into fun
word comes from French, where it and trench coats, sometimes as Ferragamo originally designed it in the 1970s,
and sporty garments.
means a children’s game: “jouer à inner linings. Can you spot who’s as a fastener for her mother’s bag. Ever since,
la marelle” is to play hopscotch. Do hiding under this raincoat? Gancini has increasingly been used on leather
you know how to play the game? accessories, footwear, scarves and clothing,
ultimately becoming an unmistakable
Ferragamo brand icon.
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You’ve come to the end of your visit to There’s a perfect combination for every
Museo Salvatore Ferragamo. You’ll have occasion, whether you prefer to be elegant
learned a lot about an accessory that or casual, romantic or adventurous,
has almost endless potential… and now trendy or understated. Choose your style,
it’s time to play around with it. When take some pictures and past your favorite
you get home, look for scarves in your one onto the following page.
or your parents’ wardrobe, and wear
them inspired by what you’ve seen today.
The only rules are imagination and
creativity!

© Fondazione Ferragamo Photo credits: Japanese manufacturer, Tosei Bartolomeo Bimbi, Garland
Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, Rhino, Gusoku (modern armor), early of flowers with two swallows, c.
Editorial project by Fondazione 2012. Photo Arrigo Coppitz, eighteenth century. Indian 1690-1697. Photo Arrigo Coppitz,
Ferragamo in collaboration with courtesy Sun Yuan & Peng Yu and manufacturer, Elephant statuette courtesy Ministero per i beni e le
Museo Salvatore Ferragamo GALLERIA CONTINUA: p. 4 with palanquin, nineteenth attività culturali e per il turismo
century. Photo Arrigo Coppitz © – Direzione Regionale Musei
Edited by: Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, Were 2021 Museo Stibbert, Florence: della Toscana, Museo della Natura
Francesca Coronella creatures born celestial?, 2020. pp. 12, 15 Morta, Poggio a Caiano (Prato):
Courtesy Sun Yuan & Peng Yu and p. 14
Graphic Design: GALLERIA CONTINUA: p 6 John James Audubon, The Birds
RovaiWeber design of America 1827-1838. Basilius Museo Salvatore Ferragamo,
Plates belonging to the Silk Cycle Besler, Hortus Eystettensis, 1613. Florence: pp. 2, 3, 5, 6 (top), 9, 10,
at Poggio Imperiale (Harvesting Photo Arrigo Coppitz, courtesy 11, 16, 18-20, 21 (bottom, photo
mulberry leaves; Preparing the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Irene Montini), 23 (photo Silvia
warp; Cutting the silk pieces), first Firenze: pp. 12, 13 Montevecchi), 26-29
half of the eighteenth century.
Courtesy Soprintendenza Crested penguin (Eudyptes
archeologia belle arti e paesaggio chrysocome), 1898; Adelia’s penguin Printed in Italy with FSC paper,
per la città metropolitana di (Pygoscelis adeliae), 1902. Photo 2021, Polistampa, Florence
Firenze e le province di Pistoia e Arrigo Coppitz, courtesy Sistema
Prato: p. 8 Museale dell’Università degli Studi
di Firenze: p. 13
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