FASHIONS IN SHOES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 8, 11 January 1939, Page 11

FASHIONS IN SHOES

Women's vagaries in dress extend even to their boots and shoes, and the form of these has constantly changed from the days when a shoe was probably nothing more than a piece of cowhide placed under the foot and brought up over the toes and round the heel, says the "Manchester Guardian,." The latest judgment on a London shoe and leather fair suggests to one observer that "women have gone crazy on clumping soles." The elegant foot is no longer necessarily slender, high-heeled, and narrow, but may be broad, flat, and clumping, as indeed, may be heard in the streets as women clump along. From this it might appear that the women of today are reverting to the broad-toed shoes of the reign of Henry VIII, later considered so unbecoming that they were ousted by proclamation during Mary's reign. If the process of reversion stops there, well and good, but it would be a calamity if women went back to the other sumptuary customs of Henry's reign, for then, says a contemporary author: "The women have doublets and jerkins as the men have, buttoned up to the breast, and made, with wings, welts, and pinions on the shoulderpoint | as man's apparel in all respects; and. although this be a kind of attire proper only to a man, yet they blush not to wear it."