Salvatore Ferragamo Reinvents an Icon for Spring/Summer 2020

If you’ve ever been to Italy and taken note of its fashionable female citizens, you’ll realize that that Salvatore Ferragamo calibrated the perfect measure of trim, chic, glamour for its Spring/Summer 2020 collection. However, there was also a lot of leather and heavy knits present alongside clothes ostensibly made to be worn during the warmer months. No one in Melbourne (where it’s currently 7ºC in the evening) would mind wearing the oversized forest-green macintosh from this collection – or those drawstring leather separates for that matter.

But there was plenty of effervescent, summery stuff to be found as well, and those were areas where the presentation was the most successful. Webby crocheted dresses, breezy tunic dresses, and lightweight looks printed with motifs taken from Bartolomeo Ammannati’s 16th century Fountain of Neptune in Florence – which was recently stored thanks to funds raised by the house of Ferragamo – were instantly wearable, especially when seen in the show’s sun-drenched outdoor venue.

Salvatore Ferragamo calibrated the perfect measure of trim, chic, glamour for its Spring/Summer 2020 collection.

Of note was the brand’s reintroduction of the ‘Vara’, its most iconic shoe design, with its dainty bow-topped upper. This time, they were modernized by a slightly more pointed shape and christened the ‘Viva’. They also added a prim aspect to the collection, balancing its more relaxed shapes and outlook. Creative Director Paul Andrew, now in his fourth season at the helm of the house, explained his work, saying, “I wanted to bring that feeling of fun and sun-drenched innocence into a modern context with a collection that is physically very light and knowingly bourgeois but which also has tangible depth, substance, and care in its construction.” Mission accomplished.