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Shoes: A Celebration of Pumps, Sandals, Slippers & More

Most shoes reveal something about the status of their wearer, but sandals have been alternately symbols of prestige and poverty, of chastity or coquetry. Plain wooden sandals were worn by the poor and humble in the Middle Ages, medieval priests and Franciscan monks donned them as a sign of disregard for worldly luxury.

After having gone out of fashion for almost 1000 years, the sandal made a comeback in the 1920s. With the addition of heels, sandals were glamorous again. Thanks to Ferragamo’s invention of the metal arch support, heeled shoes no longer needed toe caps to act as brakes on the feet. So by the end of the decade, newly liberated toes, nails painted bright red were peeping out of high-heeled sandals …. the rest in the magnificent book written in a great and insightful manner by Linda O’Keeffe.

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