Fashion house Ferragamo's museum goes online

MILAN (Reuters Life!) - Italian fashion house Salvatore Ferragamo has taken a museum detailing its history and culture online, allowing young designers to add their creative touch to its shoe models.

The website, www.museoferragamo.com, is dedicated to its "shoemaker to the stars" founder and includes pictures, vintage films relating to the Florence-based maison, which is known for its shoes, silk ties and scarves as well as handbags.

The fashion house, for whom Claudia Schiffer has modelled, was founded in the 1920s by the late Salvatore Ferragamo who started out designing footwear and made shoes for the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Greta Garbo and Audrey Hepburn.

Visitors can browse through Ferragamo archives as well as book tickets to the actual museum in Florence. Artists can download famous shoe models, redesign them and send them back with a panel of judges picking a winner to join a virtual gallery every three months.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)


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Fashion House Salvatore Ferragamo Launches Online Store

ROME -(Dow Jones)- Italian family-owned haute couture Salvatore Ferragamo SpA has launched its online boutique, the company said Monday, as luxury-goods makers aim to tap into the growing Internet market.

Residents in Italy and the U.K. can already shop via Ferragamo's Web site, and in the next few months, customers from the U.S. and the main European countries will be able to do so too, the Florence-based company.

"The Internet has certainly revolutionized our consumer behavior and today it is fundamental for luxury goods clients to be able to turn to the company directly," said Ferragamo's chief executive, Michele Norsa.

Norsa said Ferragamo is aiming for the online boutique to become one of the company's top global stores from 2010 onwards.

The company, set up more than 80 years ago, became well-known by making shoes for Hollywood stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren.

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