LOS ANGELES — Salvatore Ferragamo, a designer long associated with Hollywood, has been named to receive the Rodeo Drive Walk of Style award.
Ferragamo, who died in 1960, is the fifth recipient of the honor and the second, along with photographer Herb Ritts, to get it posthumously. The ceremony is set for Oct. 8 in Beverly Hills.
“My father was the first designer to recognize the natural symmetry between the worlds of film and fashion,” Ferruccio Ferragamo, chief executive officer of Salvatore Ferragamo Italia, said in a statement. “From Marilyn Monroe to Madonna, from ‘Some Like It Hot’ to ‘Evita,’ the house of Ferragamo has always been synonymous with Hollywood glamour and style. We are therefore delighted to be receiving this honor right where it all began.”
Ferragamo will be cited with a sidewalk plaque along Rodeo Drive that contains a quote and his signature. Previous honorees, in addition to Ritts, are Giorgio Armani (2003), Tom Ford (2004) and Mario Testino (2005).
Ferragamo immigrated to the U.S. in 1914 and opened his “Hollywood Boot Shop” at Hollywood and Las Palmas Boulevards in 1923. He made shoes for stars ranging from Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks to Mary Pickford and Greta Garbo. Ferragamo returned to his native Italy in 1927 and set up in Florence, where he designed shoes for Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn and Lauren Bacall. In addition, his designs appeared in films such as “The Ten Commandments,” “The Seven Year Itch” and “Some Like It Hot.” He is credited as the inventor of the wedge shoe.