“Honestly, it’s a huge machine,” Davis continues, referring to the company that Ferragamo launched in 1927. Ferragamo had six children with his wife, Wanda, a powerful matriarch who oversaw the company after her husband’s death in 1960. The Ferragamo family is still involved, owning about 65 percent of the publicly traded company’s shares, with the couple’s son Leonardo serving as chairman of the board. On that first day, Davis met his new assistant, who showed him around and introduced him to the different teams he’d be working with. “Obviously, I had trouble remembering everyone’s names because I think it’s 17 designers, but it was exciting,” he says.

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