Salvatore Ferragamo may be an Italian fashion house, but its namesake designer got his foothold in the business as a cobbler-to-the-stars in Hollywood, designing shoes for such films such as The Ten Commandments, then opening the Hollywood Boot Shop at Hollywood Boulevard and Las Palmas.
Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson and Audrey Hepburn were clients. Ferragamo even studied anatomy at the University of Southern California to learn how to make his shoes more comfortable, before returning to Italy in 1927 and settling in Florence, where he developed such groundbreaking designs as the wedge heel.