This is the catalogue of the important exhibition dedicated to Wanda Miletti Ferragamo, which focuses on female empowerment in various domains from the 1960s onward. This catalogue accompanies the exhibition Women in Balance at the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo in Florence. The project arose as a tribute to Wanda Miletti Ferragamo, who guided the Salvatore Ferragamo company from 1960 until her death in 2018. The volume aims to tell the story of the women who balanced their roles as mothers and wives with their work during the years of the Italian economic miracle and beyond. The story of Wanda Ferragamo's life is accompanied by the voices of women from diverse fields who embodied their time and helped to shape it. Focus is placed on women who have been pioneers in their fields (politics, literature, photography, cinema, art, music, business, science, and technology). This catalogue seeks to trigger reflections on gender relations in contemporary society and the balance needed to reconcile women's private lives with their passions and professional aspirations.

We have been walking upright for almost six million years and soon learned how to offload our body's weight on the arch of the foot. Salvatore Ferragamo dedicated all his life to the study of the foot's anatomy, also researching into architecture and engineering, as we can understand by looking at his patents. Walking, dancing barefoot or en pointe, advancing along a wire in the manner of a tight-rope walker, climbing mountains, stepping and marching on orders, wandering about to find oneself, roaming around: these are just some of the themes dealt with in Equilibrium, the new project by the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo, curated by Stefania Ricci and Sergio Risaliti. This volume is based on the comparison among magnificent, important and meaningful artworks of various origin. The project has been developed through several media: painting, sculpture, photography, video, cinema and printed editions. The geometric balancing of Wassily Kandinsky is displayed alongside the thread-like structures of Fausto Melotti; Albrecht Durer's Fortuna with Giulio Paolini's funambulist; and portraits of Nijinsky alongside those of Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and Trisha Brown.