Six months ago, British Trinidadian-Jamaican designer Maximillian Davis took over the creative direction of iconic Italian house Salvatore Ferragamo, and the brand is now the moment.

On 20 September and following other brands such as Balenciaga, Saint Laurent and CELINE, the brand unveiled a brand-new logo. “Salvatore Ferragamo”’s white text that was placed against a dark red background updated with a sharpen “Ferragamo” in a black serif typeface against a punchy red by British. The brand called designer Peter Saville to bring the logo to its next chapter.

Citing the company’s Florence roots, Saville said he chose a classic font that resembled the stone inscriptions of Renaissance artists, thereafter reducing it into a more modern look that encapsulates a “complex balance” and is “quintessentially Ferragamo.” 

All eyes were on the brand’s recent outing at Milan Fashion Week, as the event represented the debut of the label’s new creative director. The decision to officially announce the name change at the opening of the schedule’s proceedings naturally increased expectations. Red was celebrated all around, from flooring to lights, it was perfect.

Davis explained how he “wanted to take a new perspective on Hollywood culture and pay homage to the origins of the FERRAGAMO brand.” From Salvatore Ferragamo’s 1959 heels for Marilyn Monroe to the 1988 Wanda bag, the young designer had dug into FERRAGAMO’s 95-year-old brand archives to reinterpret Hollywood classics with a contemporary aesthetic.

The setting similarly had all the grandeur of the golden age of cinema. Passing through the imposing baroque entrance, a magnificent courtyard of about 3,000 square meters surrounded by a double colonnade. Red scrim fills the gaps between the upper and lower levels, and pillars became the brushstrokes outlining the geometric contours of classical architecture. Red, a symbol of the maison’s renewal, also spreads out onto the floor, where the vermilion stone became a blank canvas for capturing human footprints.

This venue, the former seminary of the Archbishop at Venice Boulevard No.11, will be transformed at the end of November into Portrait Milano, the new hotel of the Ferragamo family’s hotel group Lungarno Collection. Built in 1564, the building is one of the oldest seminaries in Europe and lies at the heart of Milan’s fashion district. The monumental and dramatic nature of the architecture will carry the spirit of the brand — both merging art of the past with modern lifestyle — and serve as a bridge between the city and its historical glory.

–