Today’s Chapter is based on the book “Shoemaker of Dreams: the Autobiography of Salvatore Ferragamo”.
Here’s what I have learned from the book:
Destiny
“Die young, and I shall accept your death-but not if you have lived without glory, without being useful to your country, without leaving a trace of your existence: for that is not to have lived at all.”
— Napoleon
Salvatore Ferragamo believed he was destined to become a shoemaker despite the discouragement of his parents. As a matter of fact, at the time in Italy, shoemakers were the lowest of all classes and being a shoemaker was not a desirable occupation.
Ferragamo believed he was born to be shoemaker, because it was his predestined path, one given by God. He once said, “I was born to be a shoemaker. I know it; I have always known it. As I look back now on the long lesson of my life I can see quite clearly how strong, how remorseless, how unrelenting is the passion within me that has driven me on and on, along a path strewn with so many hardships.”
But why did he believed so? Ferragamo mentions that he was born with a natural talent in making shoes. And, there are a few stories that exemplify this:
Firstly, Ferragamo built white shoes for his little sisters on his own without any knowledge on how to make shoes. This happened since his family was unable to afford new white shoes for church. He explains that the process took a long time, “because I had never made any shoes before. Yet somehow I knew how to do it, and I worked away, forgetting everything, so excited to be making the shoes for my little sisters.”
Secondly, Ferragamo noticed that he had not much to learn from other shoemakers, even when he was working under famous ones in Naples. He once said, “I soon found that the shoemakers in Naples could teach me nothing I did not already know.”
“In fourteen days I had gone up from nothing in that shop to cutting the shoes and making the mo and doing everything there was to do, everything that the oldest and best cobbler in the firm was doing. I do not boast about this; I state it as a fact. As the older workmen demonstrated and explained the tasks, and I took the tools and obeyed as they had shown me, I found that I could do it.”
— Salvatore Ferragamo
How did Ferragamo identify he had a natural talent in shoemaking? Ferragamo believes it came from his rapidity of learning. Whenever he was instructed by older workmen on what to do, Ferragamo felt like it was knowledge already learned similar to “ if I had been reminded of a task I had forgotten, as if I was undergoing a refresher course of things I had learned in the past. Perhaps it was absurd, but that is how it seemed to my mind.”
Although, Ferragamo did not perform every tasks perfectly, he believed that the knowledge of everything to do with shoes was already in his mind. He only had to re-train the muscles of his hand and eyes to perform what his mind dictated.
Ferragamo felt like he was a shoemaker in his previous existence and that once again, it was his destiny to become a shoemaker in this particular life. In fact, Ferragamo mentions that he has never read any books on shoes and shoemaking.
“I have remembered all about shoemaking. I have remembered: that is the only way to describe it. I have only to sit down and think, and the answer comes to me out of the memory of the days—it can be only this—when in some previous existence upon this earth I was a shoemaker. There can be no other explanation.How else can I account for the fact that at the age of ten I was a better shoemaker than my master Luigi Festa was at thirty, or at sixty for that matter? How else was it possible for me to learn everything they could teach me in two weeks in that shop in Naples?”
— Salvatore Ferragamo
Finally, Ferragamo explains that he had a natural talent in finding new styles of shoes. As a matter of fact, he explains that he never had to search for new styles, “When I need new ones I select from those that present themselves to my mind as I select an apple from the laden dish upon my table.”
Ferragamo mentions that while he was interested in the general trend of fashion, he never bothered looking into the newest trend in shoes. And yet, even without any inspiration, he was able to sit down at work and design shoes which would not resemble anything that was invented in the past.
“Today there are more than 20,000 models in my shoe library, and I hold more than 350 patents, some of which have been used and some of which are waiting to be used when the world becomes conscious of the beauty of the styles.”
— Salvatore Ferragamo
So what can we learn from the story of Salvatore Ferragamo?
In my opinion, his story is a reminder of the importance of finding one’s natural talent or destiny. And more importantly, we need to act on it! What a waste it would be if we did not act on our natural talent. As we have learned from Napoleon, nothing is more humiliating than for one to not achieve his destiny.
Napoleon mentions that can be fulfilled by the exploitation of every opportunities or accidents that are presented in front of you. Once you have identified a strength of yours, you need to take advantage of this opportunity.
“All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.”
— Napoleon
Quality over Quantity
“Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.”
— Steve Jobs
Right from the beginning, Ferragamo’s heart was devoted into making shoes by hand. Even when he first started his shoe-repairing business with his brothers in the United States, Ferragamo believed it was only a side-business as he was mainly focused on custom-made shoes.
However, Ferragamo quickly faced a dilemma: while his joy was in custom-made shoes, it was a narrow market considering only the rich could afford the price. He was not satisfied with this considering that he wanted to put his shoes on the feet of as many people as possible.
Furthermore, handmade shoes took a long time. Ferragamo explains that by “Working hard, it might be possible to make five pairs between dawn and dusk, but that was not a pace that could be maintained every day. If I made between twenty and twenty-five pairs a week I considered that I had done exceptionally well.” This was considered too slow for him, especially since he believed he was the “sole possessor of a discovery which would revolutionize shoemaking” — more on this later.
However, on the other hand, Ferragamo disliked the idea of using machinery to produce shoes. He felt that machine made shoes were too clumsy, too ugly and still too slow. He believed he had to find another way to produce more shoes while not being heavily dependent on machinery.
“I was still opposed to the use of machines in my handmade shoes—it is still true, and will always be true as long as I am in control of the work, that what are to-day known as "Ferragamo Originals” have never seen even the simplest machine.”
— Salvatore Ferragamo
As a matter of fact, Ferragamo believed that “it is the quality, not the quantity, that will be the final arbiter in my production figures. Without quality there will be no increase in output.” As a matter of fact, since Ferragamo doesn’t advertise, it is the quality of the shoes that they produce to their clients that promotes the company. If their shoes lose quality by using machinery, they won’t have to build any more shoes since there won’t be any demand.
“The strength of my name is in each pair of shoes I offer. My shoes must satisfy the people for whom they are designed. If my customers are happy they will tell others. They will say they have received value for money, and in their confidence the continuity of Ferragamo's shoes will be preserved.”
— Salvatore Ferragamo
So what was the solution to this stalemate? Ferragamo decided to implement a system of making hand-made shoes by mass production. This way, he would be able to maintain his standards and reputation while still increasing his output in a significant way.
While the idea may seemed ridiculous at first, Ferragamo believed it could work: “One man could make only so many shoes in a week; but multiply the number of shoemakers and you multiply the number of shoes. If enough shoemakers could be found and trained in my new principles I could provide them with patterns, models, and designs, and they would only have to execute the orders.”
To do so, it was primordial for Ferragamo to establish his own factory and to hire shoemakers under his own control. However, he quickly noticed that for his scheme to work, he could not hire any experienced shoemakers, because they would refuse to make the shoes the way he wanted them to make. Even through Ferragamo’s supervision, it was impossible for his factory produce two pairs of shoes alike since each experience shoemaker would want to make them his own way.
The solution was to hire inexperienced youths that he could teach and train to do just one job perfectly. Instead of completing an entire shoes on their own, “When the job was finished he handed the shoes to the next boy for the next operation.” This worked perfectly as the inexperienced boys were young and ready to learn the trade and stuck to their tasks splendidly.
This reminds me of Edwin Land’s concept of “an education without a degree”. When Land hired his employees, he often did not require them to have any technical experience. Since his company’s office was located nearby, he frequently hired fresh graduates or students from Harvard or MIT.
Furthermore, Land preferred to hire bright young liberal students over applicants with technical experience. As a matter of fact, he believed that they could learn the routines of the laboratory and the structure of scientific discipline as rapidly and, more importantly, they had little to unlearn.
While Land did not expect his new hires to have technical knowledge, he expected his employees to continue their education as an integral part of their working career. He fully believed that individuals in the industry would be better qualified to increase their technical competence and at the same time make their job fully satisfying through continuous learning.
Shoemakers’ Purpose
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Despite Ferragamo’s natural talent in shoemaking, there has been one thing that he was unable to solve: the secret of the shoes that would always fit. As such, Ferragamo made it his life’s work “to learn to make shoes that always fit and the refusal to put my name to any that do not fit.”
In Ferragamo’s opinion, it is the shoemaker’s job to make shoes that fitted and if he failed to do so, it was his duty, both to his craft and to his customers to find the reason why. Ferragamo believed that the issue was with the method of taking measurements.
As such, he explains that “To unearth this knowledge I was forced to seek and study and experiment for many months.Therefore I believe that the secret had been long forgotten—if, indeed, it had ever been known at all.”
As a matter of fact, once his English improved sufficiently, he enrolled to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, as an evening student, to study human anatomy. He was particularly interested in the human skeleton.
One day, he was asked by the professor why he was so interested in the skeleton. Ferragamo responded, "I am a shoemaker and I am interested in the feet." After studying human anatomy, he quickly realised that he had to find a new system to measure feet in order to make shoes that fit his customers. This became his life’s purpose.
“I flung myself entirely into the business of giving every customer who came to my shop a foot comfort he or she had never known in her life, a comfort which may, perhaps, be best summed up in the words, spoken many years later, of the former Queen of Rumania, wife of King Carol and mother of King Michael. Soon after she had been banished from the throne she came to me for the first time. As she paced the floor of my salon in her first pair of Ferragamo shoes I asked her: "Do you mind walking about?" As she did so I said: "Do your feet feel free?" "Free?" she replied. "In these shoes my toes seem to be swimming. This is one freedom they will never take away from me."”
— Salvatore Ferragamo
Ferragamo mentions that it is this discovery that let him to find his fortune making shoes. As a matter of fact, what differentiated him from other shoemakers was that he was focused on making comfortable shoes rather than selling design, style or handicraft. Ferragamo was able to find his niche and his life purpose.
This reminds me of the importance of finding one’s niche as we have learned with Isadore Sharp, the founder of Four Seasons. Isadore Sharp was able to create one of the largest hotel chain in history despite competing with various existing giants in the industry such as Holiday Inn and Marriott by specializing. As such, he decided to fully focus on midsize hotels of exceptional quality to offer a differentiated product compared to the rest of the industry.
“Holiday Inn had created an empire on U.S. highways, first through standardized rooms, then by becoming “the host with the most,” the first to offer free cribs, dog kennels, soft drinks, and ice machines. Marriott had found a profitable niche in suburban complexes, between the new roadside motels and the older downtown hotels. I believed we could do as well, maybe better. All we had to do was stand out from the clutter, be distinctive.”
— Isadore Sharp
Furthermore, Ferragamo explains that he was able to obtain a distinct competitive advantage over other shoemakers because of his understanding of the human anatomy. While others were copying his patterns, designs, styles and ideas, they were unable or would not copy the key feature of his shoes: the fitting.
He explains that “they steal everything ephemeral, everything that to-morrow or next season or next year will be dead and gone, passed into the sphere of the old-fashioned until it is resurrected and modified in the course of the evolutionary cycle of fashion. Yet they refuse to look at the one unchanging feature of my shoes, the reason why my shoes fit and others do not. They not only refuse to look, they deny its value.”
Not only this, Ferragamo mentions that other shoemakers always evaded the issue of comfortability by blaming on the feet of their customers rather than changing the way they measure or made shoes. As an example, he explains the fallacy behind the concept that new shoes have to be broken in:
“Signora, you will never break in those shoes; they will break in your feet. There is no pair of feet in the world strong enough to smash through the rigidity of those shoes you have bought. (…) They have been hammered and pounded, moulded and cooked as effectively as a section of hightensile steel. Once those shoes are on your feet, your feet become moulded to the shoe. It is you who are broken in.”
— Salvatore Ferragamo
Beyond the Book
Read "Warren Buffett: The Three Things I Look For in a Person" by Farnam Street
Listen to "Shoemaker of Dreams" by Ferragamo Podcast