"White Shoe" - A Ferragamo Fairy Tale

A lovely short film was made specially for a uniquely "fairy tale entwined" exhibit, built on the many stories, tales, legends - both fairy tale and real - of shoes. This particular film is based on the life, talent and work of one of Italy's most famous shoemakers, Salvatore Ferragamo (saying "cobblers" doesn't seem quite right!).

The exhibit is titled The Prodigious Shoemaker: Tales and Legends of Shoes and Shoemakers so the specific fairy tale quality of the film fits exceptionally well.

The film was designed to be viewed by visitors as they wander through the presentation in which art pieces and works in various media, blend together. They put history and fantasy side by side, with the express intent of showing one couldn't live without the other (as aspect I LOVE!). The stories range from tales - both true and fantastic - around Chinese foot binding, to Cinderella, to The Red Shoes and much, much more.

The official website for the exhibit is in Italian and to do too much to translate it in a hurry from the auto-translate seems to lose a little of the magic of the description, so I'm leaving most of the odd language intact for you to be enchanted by, just as I was on first reading it:

To show the tales, it would seem a contradiction in terms to show what was/is real physically and what is fantasy. Instead, the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum in Florence will show from April 19, 2013 to 31 March 2014 that you can also watch the legends and not just listen to them. It will be through the world of the fairy tale, filling the spacious rooms of the Palazzo Ferroni with "The Prodigious Shoemaker," which will open in Florence on April 18. It's a magical time for fairy tales. At the movies Tim Burton brings his "Alice in Wonderland" and other filmmakers have updated certain icons of childhood, from Little Red Riding Hood to the Beauty and the Beast, to two recent versions of Snow White. And this month are leaving "the great and powerful Oz" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" while in the near future are provided "Hansel and Gretel" and a "Maleficent" starring Angelina Jolie, taken from "The Sleeping Beauty". In short, what was a wealth of children today it is also great, so need to dream.

"The Prodigious Shoemaker - Tales and Legends of shoes and shoemakers," curated by Stefania Ricci, Sergio and Luca Recovered Scarlini hath been given the task to fly the minds of visitors through the history of the shoe, a theme that has always fascinated writers of fairy tales. Wearing shoes was a sign of wealth and power but the shoe is also a job, that of shoemaker and cobbler, antique flavor of passion and sacrifice and so hungry. It 's the story of Salvatore Ferragamo, who has taught so much. 

Many authors and artists from different disciplines who have joined the show, creating works by helping interventions. Experts in children's fiction, as Faeti Antonio and Michele Rak, film scholars like Alexander Bernardi, writers and poets such as Hamid Ziarati, Michele Mari, Elisa Biagini for this project have written new tales supported by illustrators like Francesca and Michela Petoletti Ghermandi.The great composer Luis Bacalov wrote a new musical score as an overture to the show, while young photographers Simona Ghizzoni and Lorenzo Cicconi Massi, along with expert Henry Coppitz, have the photographer Salvatore Ferragamo shoes make them fabulous. And then the work of Annette Lemieux Messenger was approached by the myth of Mercury, that of Carol Rama to the hard version of Cinderella, that of Daniel Spoerri at Tom Thumb. An entire section of the exhibition is dedicated to the sculptures and drawings by Mimmo Paladino: For this occasion the artist field has collaborated on an original animation with the writer ecomico Alexander Berger, author of a visionary tale. And many others.

I hope to be able to write more about the exhibit soon, because the details of various pieces in particular are amazing, but for now, I'll just include this excerpt of the official introductory blurb from The Salvatore Ferragamo Museum, that's hosting and housing the exhibition:

...fairy tales are invading our imagination. As if now, more than ever, there was the need to address through the paths mysterious fantasy and dream solutions, the answers to that set of moral questions, doubts  and hardships that afflict our times. It is in times of crisis that presents a more urgent need to fantasize with imagination and overcome obstacles and fears. It is a universal need as this  is primal instinct. That's why fairy tales are considered inexhaustible reservoir of our archetypes,  of our primitive experiences.

Without further ado, for your viewing pleasure, White Shoe:

The Prodigious Shoemaker: Tales and Legends of Shoes and Shoemakers (in which White Shoe is shown in various backdrops as part of the multi-media presentation), is currently showing in Florence, Italy at The Salvatore Ferragamo Museum until March 31st, 2014.