Vivia Ferragamo

Vivia Ferragamo was born into Florence’s fashion royalty, the Ferragamo family and represents the third generation of the renowned fashion house. As the granddaughter of the legendary shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo and daughter of Ferruccio Ferragamo, she has fashion in her blood. Vivia has always lived and breathed fashion and desired to create a company separate from that of her family, with its own trademark, a stylized V. London-based Vivia has successfully managed to combine the ambition and detail of her grandfather’s brand with a fresh unique perspective, creating a style which is distinctly her own.

Vivia Ferragamo considers herself British and Italian with ties to American fashion scene, since she has been trained in design and graduated from FIT, New York. She was raised in many places; her mother’s English, but she was born in Florence, Italy. Vivia Ferragamo lived there until she was fifteen and then went to study at Oxford. After that, Vivia Ferragamo came to New York where she graduated from FIT, and then had her first couple jobs, traveled a while, and lived in Paris working for Emanuel Ungaro.

In 2002 after 3 and a half years at Ungaro, Vivia Ferragamo realized that she is quite ready for creating her own collection, moved to London and built up her own lucrative label, Vivia, and launched her own break-out top-to-toe collection of women’s ready-to-wear line which includes swimwear, shoes and handbags. While acknowledging the genuis touch of her grandfather, Vivia is keen to stress that a designer must be true to themselves and follow the creativity within. She looks like she’s hitting the right note judging by her stylish following, which include Gwyneth Paltrow and the Ting Tings.

As Vivia Ferragamo confesses herself, she compares designing to a trip, journey, which’s always been her dream. She is learning a lot every day by mistakes, surroundings. Vivia’s genius is not usually inspired by a specific era or a specific actress or a film. She gets inspired by situations, emotions, states of mind, energy, positiveness, and curiosity. Not to say that Florence doesn’t have this, Vivia comes here to work and feels more of a tourist when she’s in London, NY, or LA. Differences in cultures add a special zest to complete her creative streak. She reckons her creativity to be very internal, like a feeling, a sensation.