Ferragamo pitches the new F factor for fascinating, fabulous and fetish

Any designer brand worth its creative credentials has a fragrance extension in its collection.

Where accessories often provide the bread and butter for a brand, a fragrance gives an entry point for new and often younger customers who otherwise could not afford to 'experience' a brand.

Some labels opt for the sooner rather than later approach (Stella McCartney launched her first fragrance two years after the launch of her own label) and others appear to be in no particular hurry.

It took the Ferragamo family more than 80 years to venture into fragrances. This month it launches its third scent, F by Ferragamo, which comes eight years after its inaugural Ferragamo, which was followed four years later by Incanto.

Salvatore Ferragamo opened his first shoe shop in 1911, at the age of 13 in Bonito, Italy. A year later he relocated to America and by the 1920s had garnered a reputation as shoemaker to the stars.

In 1927 he returned to Florence, Italy, where the Ferragamo reputation began to gain strength in Europe.