MORTIMER HOUSE
37-41 Mortimer St
London W1T 3JH
Luca Guadagnino’s Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams is a documentary about the life, work and legacy of Salvatore Ferragamo.
The screening of the film will be followed by a Q&A with journalist, author and UK Vogue’s European Sustainability Editor Dana Thomas, scriptwriter of the film, and hosted by journalist and writer Davina Catt.
Welcome drinks on the House from 6:00PM
SALVATORE: SHOEMAKER OF DREAMS
dir: Luca Guadagnino
written by Dana Thomas and Giuppy D’Aura
with Salvatore Ferragamo, Michael Stuhlbarg, Manolo Blahnik, Suzy Menkes, Grace Coddington, Martin Scorsese
Italy | 2022 | 169 min | PG
Growing up in Bonito, a poor area of Southern Italy, Salvatore Ferragamo began his career as a shoemaker before he was barely a teenager. Immigrating to America in 1915 at the age of 16, his work would soon help invent the glamour of Hollywood’s silent era as he created shoes for iconic films including The Thief of Bagdad and The Ten Commandments as well as for stars including Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, many of whom became his friends.
Overcoming a Depression-era setback, Ferragamo rebounded and would define mid-century elegance for performers including Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth, and Ingrid Bergman — all while embarking on a love story and warm family life with his wife, Wanda, and their six children.
ABOUT DANA THOMAS
Dana Thomas is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author of Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes, Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano and Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, all published by Penguin Press, and Fashionopolis Young Readers Edition, published by Dial Books.
She is the European Sustainability Editor for British Vogue, a freelance contributor to the New York Times, and the host of “The Green Dream,” a bi-weekly podcast on sustainability, produced by Talkbox Studio. She wrote the screenplay for Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams, a feature documentary directed by Luca Guadagnino, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2020.
Thomas began her career writing for the Style section of The Washington Post, and for fifteen years she served as a cultural and fashion correspondent for Newsweek in Paris. Thomas has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and Architectural Digest. In 1987, she received the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation’s Ellis Haller Award for Outstanding Achievement in Journalism. In 2016, the French Minister of Culture named Thomas a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. And in 2017, she was a Logan Nonfiction Fellow at the Carey Institute for Global Good. She lives in Paris.
ABOUT DAVINA CATT
Davina Catt is a London based journalist writing for publications including Vogue International, Financial Times, Interview and been contributing editor for bi-annual title Violet. She recently co-wrote/directed a documentary about Saving British Public libraries, which was released on Curzon channels, receiving press in Harpers Bazaar, The Guardian and Bafta.
She has also given talks and been part of panel events at Fashion & Textile Museum, V&A, Cine Lumiere and for the launch of the Kingsman film. She started as a feature writer at the Evening Standard.
A members’ House in London’s Fitzrovia.
Set in a six-storey Art Deco building in the heart of Fitzrovia, Mortimer House brings beautifully designed work, social and wellbeing spaces together under one roof. With hospitality at its core, Mortimer House is a stimulating place for our members to collaborate, create and unwind — as well as feel at home.
