Salvatore Ferragamo (5 June 1898 – 7 August 1960) was an Italian shoe designer and the founder of luxury goods high-end retailer Salvatore Ferragamo S.p.A. An innovative shoe designer, Salvatore Ferragamo established a reputation in the 1930s. In addition to experimenting with materials including kangaroo, crocodile, and fish skin, Ferragamo drew on historic inspiration for his shoes. Early life Salvatore (registered as "Salvadore") Ferragamo was born in 1898 to a poor family in Bonito, Italy, near Avellino, the eleventh of fourteen children of Antonio Ferragamo and Mariantonia Ferragamo (both had the same surname, which often happened in smaller Italian towns). After making his first pair of shoes for himself, a pair of high heels, at age nine (and his sisters to wear at their confirmation), young Salvatore decided that he had found his calling. Career After studying shoemaking in Naples for a year, Ferragamo opened a small store based in his parents' home. In 1915, he emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, where one of his brothers worked in a cowboy boot factory. After a brief stint at the factory, Ferragamo convinced his brothers to move to California, first Santa Barbara then Hollywood. It was there that Ferragamo found success, initially opening a shop for repair and made-to-measure shoes, leading to a long period of designing footwear for the cinema. Reluctant to accept that his shoes could be beautiful but uncomfortable to wear, he studied anatomy at the University of Southern California. After spending thirteen years in the US, Ferragamo returned to Italy in 1927, settling in Florence. He began to fashion shoes for prominent women, including the Maharani of Cooch Behar, Eva Perón and Marilyn Monroe. He opened a workshop in the Via Mannelli, experimenting with design, while applying for patents for his innovations. He filed for bankruptcy in 1933 due to bad management and economic pressure, but was able to expand his operations in the 1950s, including a workforce of 700 artisans who made 350 pairs of shoes per day, by hand. "The Rainbow" was created by Salvatore Ferragamo in 1938 and was the first instance of the platform shoe returning in modern days in the West. The platform sandal was designed for American singer and actress Judy Garland. The shoe was a tribute to Garland's signature song "Over the Rainbow" performed in The Wizard of Oz (1939) feature film. The shoe was crafted using shaped slabs of cork covered