My "new" old shoes!

crinolinegirl

crinolinegirl

Alumni
My \"new\" old shoes!

Found these while on holiday in sunny old Mablethorpe...

<img src="http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/example/gingham1.jpg">
<img src="http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/example/gingham2.jpg">
<img src="http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/example/gingham3.jpg">
<img src="http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/example/gingham4.jpg">
<img src="http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/example/gingham5.jpg">

<img src="http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/example/pink1.jpg">
<img src="http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/example/pink2.jpg">
<img src="http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/example/pink3.jpg">
<img src="http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/example/pink4.jpg">

Thet are both made out of printed kid leather and have straight soles with small wedge heels.

I'm dating them to right on 1800 (does that seem about right Jonathan?) as the toes aren't as pointy as 1780's and early 1790's toes were and it seems that after 1810, toes started to become squared off. I found a 1798 fashion plate in one of my books with a lady wearing a pair of similar pointed toe shoes but as you all know, most people were a few years behind the fashion plates.

They are much more coarser and primitive in construction than Regency shoes that I have seen and are made much more wider than Regency and Victorian shoes too! They are lined in coarse linen, much coarser than later slippers and the green and yellow gingham pair even have leather patches sewn on the insides at sides of the foot to provide an extra layer between the hard floor, thin leather of the shoe and the splay of the foot over the sole!

This gingham pair is fairly large too, about a US 8 and VERY WIDE. I don't normally try on 200 year old shoes but these are wide enough for my own size 10 feet! The lilac pair are a bit smaller in size but still made very wide too.
The gingham pair have their original label stuck in advertising Rosbie and Fearon. I swear I have heard of them before but of course, I can't find any reference in my books at the moment.

Neat huh? :)

Lei
 
oh my!

and I thought my edwardian boots were a find!

There is such a romance to something this old and a poignancy too. Looking at the inside sole of the first pair, you wonder what the woman
was like that wore these and what her life was like.

What treasures Lei!

Sue
 
THe problem with this era in footwear is that there are overlaps. Pointed toed shoes are being made until 1810ish, square toes although very small square toes at the end of a tapered vamp appear very early, c. 1800ish and round toes appear about 1805ish and continue right up to 1830. This is a country-made pair, which you can tell from the rough linen lining. Any pair of shoes made in London in the early 1800s would have utilized a very fine white linen. The large bow on the gingham pair put these into the 1810s. Throat ornaments are not large before 1815 generally, but the small heel of the yellow pair is an earlier feature in English footwear. American shoes will still have heels well into the 1820s while European footwear is flat. I would think they are both 1810s. If it weren't for the flat bow on the yellow gingham pair I might have though they were 1808ish, but the bow, which I am sure is original to the shoes, puts them into the early teens.
 
EEEEEE!!!!!!!!! (that's a shriek of glee not a "EEWWWW" = yuck)

When you said printed leather i am thinking of something that is not but in my mind looks more like a pattern that is black on leather almost reminiscent of a wood burning design. But this really really is just like a print you would find on a fabric. I wonder if they were vat died the base color first with the overprinting of the green or all color was printed...
that's just my personal curiosity and nothign more...

Chris
 
Cool, thanks for the dates!:)
I was looking on the net this evening for similar shoes and you're right, there are alot of overlapping things. Examples I found on the Northampton shoe museum are alot different from the early 1800's shoes I saw on a New York museum site. There was a great time lag between the UK and US shoes on both sites but mine had more elements from shoes shoes shown on the Northampton site than the US sites I visited.
I'm trying to figure out where they were made as the town on the label is just barely visible. I'll have to study it closely in better light tomorrow.

Lei
 
>I wonder if they were vat died the base color first with the overprinting of the green or all color was printed...

I have a feeling that designs were stenciled on. I wish it would say in my books!! The gingham shoes have a yellow leather base and then the green "gingham" stripes seem to be stenciled on later. Whether this was done with a stencil or with a roller, I'm not sure.

Lei
 
Lei,
It really is nice knowing that I'm not the only person who goes on vacation and comes home with old shoes! You are a woman after my own heart!

Cute shoes!

Lizzie
 
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