Footwear

If one can deduce that basic footwear shapes have evolved only so much, it is necessary to discover why this has happened. It is surely not due to a lack of imagination – the colours and materials of shoes today demonstrate that. Looking at shoes from different parts of the world, one can see undeniable similarities. While the Venetians were wearing the chopine, the Japanese balanced on high-soled wooden shoes called geta. Though the shape is slightly different, the idea remains the same. The Venetians had no contact with the Japanese, so it is not a case of imitation. Even the mystical Chinese practise of footbinding has been n our culture. Some European women and men of the past bound their feet with tape and squashed them into too-tight shoes. In fact, a survey from the early 1990s reported that 88 percent of American women wear shoes that are too small!As one examines footwear history, both in the West and in other parts of the world, the similarities are apparent. Though the shoemakers of the past never would have thought to pair a sandas with a platform sole, our shoe fashions of today are, for the most part, modernised adaptations of past styles.