For Spring-Summer 2025, Maximilian Davis explores Ferragamo ’s history with ballet, celebrating its expressive elegance and finding new harmonies between his personal story and the brand’s history.
An intimate moment caught between Salvatore Ferragamo and dancer and anthropologist Katherine Dunham; Rudolf Nureyev wearing custom-made Ferragamo ballerina shoes in the 1980s. A shoe being meticulously fit on a Black woman in mid-century Florence; the liberated sexuality of a radical icon. Snapshots in time, now distilled to their essence. Freedom expressed through a wardrobe.
“I’ve always incorporated different historic eras in my work – eras which feel relatable to me and my heritage,” says Davis. “At Ferragamo, I’ve sought out similarities – and the beauty of this brand is that that there are so many different stories you can relate to. Every shoe has a meaning behind it. Every shoe has a story.”
Through the visual vocabulary of Ferragamo, the balletic spirit of disparate decades is united. Practice uniforms inspire second-skin cashmere cotton layered, twisted and tied, while freedom of movement materialises through ballooning silhouettes: opera coats and parachute dresses rendered in silk nylons, suede and organza alike. Nureyev’s eighties wardrobe informs louche, oversized tailoring and technical tracksuits; Dunham’s mid-century glamour materialises through sequin embroidery, made modern through a resin treatment.
The collection also appears imbued with the energy of the Caribbean: frayed, stonewashed denim; organic forms; rubber jelly moccasins. Raw finishes sit in contrast with the collection’s purity; raised hemlines injects romance with fetishism.
Expressions of the Ferragamo brand are discretely omnipresent: the leather handcraft at the heart of the house appears through intricately interlaced Gancini forms, while the monogram is expressed through a sustainable line of stonewashed denim jacquard and perforated satchel bags.
For footwear, pointy styles of the angular Eva pump and a graphic sandal are laced up the calf with matte silk ribbons, echoing the ballerina story of the collection with a modern minimalism. Elsewhere, fringed jacquard mules appear alongside geometric booties, a contemporary evolution of a 1940s archival style.
In accessories, a supple handbag silhouette is introduced, gently collapsing on itself, its leather pierced with a metal Gancini. The iconic Hug bag is softened and reconstructed, its single handle and supple leather now gently informing its structure or is adapted into a new clutch. The Foulard draws its shape from the drape of scarves, as does a two-piece hobo suspended from a leather Gancini chain.
