V77: Green Shoes Throughout History

1720-50; The Met

Today I’m giving my presentation on hats, but my heart belongs to shoes. 🙂  It’s Saint Patrick’s Day, so how about celebrating with a look at green shoes throughout history:

1690-1720; Shoe Icons
1760-75; 
1760s; The Met
1790s; The Met
1810s; The Met
Side-lace boot – GREEN! – The Met, 1830

 

1880s-90s, Shoe Icons
1912-15; Shoe Icons.  That is a leprechaun-ette’s shoe if ever I saw one.
1920s, Philadelphia Museum of Art
1930, Philadelphia Museum of Art

I hope you all have a great St. Patrick’s Day, and eat lots of corned beef.  NOM

8 Comments

  • Megan

    March 18, 2012 at 3:42 AM

    I just noticed that all the shoes, aside from flats and one of the pairs from the 20th Century, have a short heel. If I remember correctly, women's heels were short not due to fashion or not wanting a high heel, but because higher heels (and stillettos) require steel and other manufacturing materials for women's shoe fashion that wasn't highly utilized until later. Am I incorrect?

    • Lauren R

      March 20, 2012 at 4:43 AM

      Megan, you are absolutely right. The steel shank used in stilettos did not come along until the 1950s. Before that time, heels were made of wood or stacked leather. We don't have much of a concept today of "breaking" a heel, but it could and did happen in the past, particularly in the the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, when heels were getting higher but were still made out of wood. There are some great ads in the old Sears catalogs from the early '30s advertising "spike heels," what we would think would be a thin heel of 5 or 6 inches these days, but it was only 2.5 inches, just much narrower than the typical cuban heels of the time.

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