Inhabited Chair: A Brief History of Shoes
This week marks the 1878th anniversary of when humans began distinguishing left shoes from right shoes. The date may not be exact but I am basing it off of information on scopesysys.com. In honor of this anniversary, I thought I would offer up a brief history of how the shoe came to be what it is today.
Although people have been wearing sock-like foot coverings for 40,000 years, the ancient Egyptians are credited with creating with the first rigid shoe: the sandal. Even back then, with footwear was at its simplest, shoes were used as a symbol of power and rank. For example, the pharaoh and other royalty denoted their power by wearing sandals with extended toes that curled upward in a spiral. The lower class wore only plain toe sandals, and the slaves were forced to go barefoot.
The Greeks then adapted shoes for specific purposes, and made shoemaking more of an art form. This is also the first time where heels, or elevated shoes in general, first came into use.
During Roman times, shoes became much more practical instead of fashionable. Throughout this time period, color coding was used to denote social status, with red reserved for the emperor, black and white for the senators, and pale colors for the upper class. The poor, if they could afford sandals, were restricted to only the plainest styles.
The dark ages saw the advent of the turned shoe. A turned shoe is one in which the fabric is sewn together, and then flipped inside out so that the stitching is on the inside. During the Medieval era, William II introduced the fashion of pointed toes. This fashion would grow so out of hand, that men were eventually forced to wear a chain from their knees to the toes of their shoes so that they would not fall down. Eventually, most local governments would outlaw toes longer than two inches past the end of the foot. Perhaps even more importantly in determining the vogue, King Charles VIII of France began to wear square toed shoes because he had six toes on each foot, and when the king does something, you follow.
Things were carried to the other extreme with the bear claw shoe that could reach up to twelve inches across, forcing the wearer to literally waddle around. Eventually Queen Mary would outlaw such shoes of ridiculous widths. Following this, there was only one way to go, up. Shoes would literally lift the wearers up to two feet off the ground. At this point ladies wearing the fashion of the day would have to be escorted around. Some historians suspect this stemmed from a desire of men to make sure their wives could not travel far in their absence. Eventually so many women fell and had miscarriages due to their shoes, that the super high heels fell out of fashion.
The 17th and 18th centuries saw men’s heels becoming fashionable when King Louis XV, who was of short stature, introduced them to the upper class. (He of course banned the heel from being worn by France’s poor) This continued until the French revolution when heel heights were lowered in a symbolic move to emphasize equality.
The 19th century saw the beginning of some crude automation of the shoe making process in North America, making left and right shoes far easier to produce, even though they had been in use for over a thousand years before this time. Over in Europe, modesty was the name of the game. This gave rise to the ankle boot, which ensured that even if a lady’s skirt shifted unexpectedly, no skin would show.
At the very tail end of the 1800′s, when the game of basketball came into being, the sneaker was first introduced. Eventually, with the vulcanization of rubber, what we know as sneakers today began to appear. In the early 1900′s the Chuck Taylor Converse All Stars hit the market and are still being sold today. After WWII, the sneaker really took off and became specialized to each individual activity.
Today we have a huge variety of choices when it comes to buying shoes. Although we may laugh at the ridiculous fashions of the past, it is because of their experimentation that we can enjoy the comfortable and varied shoes of today. We owe much to Duke Leopold II of Austria, who died because his overly long shoes prevented him from escaping assassins. To the Duke!
Shoe Thoughts: This week I am going to highlight shoes that will help to both contrast and compare the different evolutions the shoe went through.
The current reincarnation of the classic Chuck Taylor’s are being sold to benefit the Global Fund to Fight AIDS. With this shoe you can make a fashion statement and help make a difference at the same time. The shoe works well for both men and women with its simple design and remains comfortable with minimal padding. This shoe would be considered puny back in the day despite it being one of the tallest heeled shoes we offer. The BCBGirls Dorothy is far more an effective shoe for walking than the high heels of the past and should not require any assistance to walk. Even the almost comically long toe of the Impulse P8092 would pale in comparison to the shoes worn by the Duke. Impulse is one of my favorite lines of shoes that are fashionable and affordable. The boot will draw the attention of the room to the wearer as they certainly will stand out in a crowd.
Non-Shoe Thoughts:
- Not too long ago, Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, appeared as a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Normally even when Stewart disagrees with his guests he is at least polite to them, with Gingrich he clearly had no respect for his guest and simply attacked him. One of the more entertaining interviews I’ve seen him do.
- Doing research for this week’s post made me really glad I live in this time period instead of previous centuries. I can’t imagine wearing shoes anything like what they use to wear.
- As I write this, I only have 5 more weeks here at Shoebuy.com, Inc. My, how time flies.
June 13th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
It’s always interesting to see if we learn from history. We still wear the same thing as worn in the ancient times: sandals. Do you think that implies that simple is the best? Does the fact that styles change so much over the years imply that people really don’t know what they want, but rather need (want?) to be lead by others – even to determine what they like?
also, I think the reason jon Stewart had such a hard time wtih Newt Gingrich was that the man resigned his congressional seat in disgrace. Somehow this is not being picked up by the press these days – the passage of time does not exonerate him. He was a sleazy guy then and he still is. Stewart has standards you know.
June 19th, 2009 at 10:03 am
I think wearing sandals today implies that despite fashion trends we will always return to what actually works and functions. As for your next question I think that there certainly is something to the “sheepish” nature of people and that they want to lead. It is easier. However, I believe it is mostly due to the fact that people get caught up in the day to day and forget to take a historical perspective and get carried away.
I would tend to agree with comments on the Gingrich/Stewart incident.