The first thing Graziella Ferro does with a new client is ask them to walk. Not toward a mirror or a measuring stool, but up and down the cobbled lane outside her workshop in the Oltrarno, the artisan quarter on the south bank of Florence. She watches their gait, the roll of the foot, the way they favour one side. Only after several minutes does she bring them inside to trace their feet on paper, a ritual she has repeated for twenty-six years.
Calzoleria Ferro makes around sixty pairs of shoes a year, entirely by hand. Each pair takes roughly ninety hours of work spread over several months, from carving a wooden last shaped to the client's foot to the final polishing of the heel. Ferro has two assistants, both former apprentices, and a waiting list that currently runs to twenty-two months. She does not advertise, has no website and answers enquiries by post.
The last is everything
The heart of the process is the last, the foot-shaped block around which a shoe is built. Ferro carves each one from beech, starting with a rough form and removing wood with rasps and files until it matches the tracings, the measurements and her notes on how the client moves. A pair of lasts can take two full days. They are kept on shelves along the back wall, labelled by name, some belonging to clients who have ordered for three decades.
The uppers are cut from calf, cordovan or occasionally deerskin, chosen from a tannery in the Veneto that Ferro has used since she opened. Pattern pieces are traced onto the hide by hand, avoiding every flaw, then cut, skived and stitched. The sole is attached with a hand-welted construction that allows the shoe to be resoled many times over. A well-kept pair, Ferro says, should outlast the knees of the person wearing it.
A machine can make a perfect shoe. Only a person can make a shoe that is perfect for someone. — Graziella Ferro
Her clients include a retired conductor, a surgeon who spends twelve hours a day on her feet, and a surprising number of young professionals who have saved for years to buy a single pair. The first fitting takes place in a trial shoe of cheaper leather, which Ferro marks with chalk and sometimes cuts open to see where the foot presses. Adjustments are made to the last before the real shoe is begun.
Florence was once home to hundreds of workshops like hers. Many closed during the long decline of the artisan trades, and rents in the historic centre have since pushed most survivors out to the suburbs. Ferro owns her premises, which she believes is the only reason she is still here. She has recently started teaching a weekly evening class for aspiring makers, partly out of a sense of duty to the street.
Asked whether she ever feels pressure to work faster, she shrugs. The price of a pair is high, she admits, but it reflects the time, and the time is the product. Clients who complain about the wait are gently advised to buy elsewhere. Very few do. Most return every few years for resoling, and some bring their children to be measured, beginning the whole slow process again.
