Guest Author - Norma Shephard

In a column entitled Advice About Boots, What’s What 1902 instructed that “the punishment should fit the crime.” Edwardian propriety dictated that ladies with wide feet or thick ankles should avoid boots with pointy toes or slender curved heels. Those possessing dainty feet with flat insteps were encouraged to choose lace-ups with a Louis heel. The belief that feet were more attractive in closefitting, smallish shoes caused many women to constrict their toes in tight, undersized footwear. “The uglier the foot the plainer and less obtrusive should be it’s covering,” proclaimed the popular London instruction manual, which further suggested that boots should be selected in accordance with one’s “personal defects and qualities.” Canadian advertisers were equally blunt in this regard; in fact, one department store catalogue proclaimed “EEE Width for Stout Ankles”.

Vanity extended to the choice of construction materials as well as shoe style. Shiny materials, with their ability to attract the eye, were to be avoided by those individuals self-conscious about their feet. In a mail order spring-and-summer catalogue c.1900, Canada’s leading department store advertised a Matron boot “for a high instep and fat foot.” The low-heeled shoe with its plain wide toe, sold for $1.50. A few years later, anyone wearing these was considered out-of-date. By 1902, London style-setters declared that short-in-the-toe boots for women were so passé as to be inadmissible. The rage for pointy toes extended even to men’s oxfords.

Economy-minded women; however, selected plain shoes that were not easily classed or attributed to a particular date or season. As such, their footwear outlived costlier shoes with fancy finishes, cut in accordance with a more trendy but short-lived style.

Sealskin, though expensive, produced the most durable footwear, keeping its shape for five or six years in succession. Thin, but hardwearing and almost waterproof, sealskin could be worn comfortably in both winter and summer, due to its insulating properties. Tooled Moroccan leather, ooze-calf, and ooze-sheep were next in price and comfort, although many women reserved their leather shoes for bad weather only, finding them stiff, hot, and heavy for general wear. Smooth and glacé kid provided the cheapest footwear options, but boots and shoes made of these soon lost their shape, proving once again that you get what you pay for.

World War I brought with it a shortage of leather, resulting in a new vogue for cloth-topped shoes and boots, as well as a need for functional footwear and black mourning shoes. Shoes for half-mourning were produced in combinations of black and gray or black and white.

To see examples of vintage footwear from this period, see my book, In Step with Fashion; 200 Years of Shoe Styles.