One, two, buckle my shoe…
They were perfect, reader. Glittery, purple plastic sandals, waterproof, even, that I could buckle myself! They weren’t my first pair of shoes, nor my last, but they left a lasting impression. I still think of those glittery purple jelly sandals, of the deep-down-comfortable feeling of certainty they gave me, and sigh a little for a simpler time. It is by way of a stereotype that women are very keen on shoes, although there are a fair few sneaker heads among the male population, too. The dress historian Linda Przybyszewski has suggested that people began to focus a lot more of their attention on shoes when hats were slowly but surely eradicated from daily wear, to our detriment. Hats can be dyed, re-shaped, brightened or altered with flowers and a new hat band or a jaunty feather, and they can be sculptural, complex, fascinating, or deceptively simple, while being quite comfortable to wear. Plus, they draw attention to the face. Shoes, on the other hand, are usually not ideal for DIY makeovers, and the more sculptural and interesting they become, the less lovely they are to wear. And, as Przybyszewski points out, the fabulous ones draw our eyes down to the feet, or at least the bottom half of the wearer - literally the opposite end of the body from where, I would hope, we want most focus!
But, of course, none of those concerns ever entered my mind as a pre-schooler with those purple jelly sandals. There is a somewhat controversial book called Art and Agency by the art critic, anthropologist, and theorist Alfred Gell, and while I don’t agree with everything he posits, one of his points stands out when I recall those purple sandals. Gell argues that decoration isn’t superfluous - it really matters! He gives the example of a child’s bedsheets, saying that it is much easier to get a little boy to go to bed willingly if his bedsheets are emblazoned with images of a beloved superhero. Does a pattern of flying Supermans help the sheets do their job? Well, according to Gell, yes, they do! Sure, a set of plain white sheets would cover a bed just as admirably, but they would not be as appealing to the child in question, so the added decoration is vital to the function of the sheets and, very likely, to the sanity of the beleaguered parent! Similarly, I probably put on my jelly sandals more eagerly than I might have put on plain, boring old sandals, especially if their buckles were tricky for my pudgy little fingers. As we discussed in this week’s episode, Victorian children did sometimes have to contend with clothes that were not built with their motor skills in mind. That way of thinking about kids and their clothes wouldn’t take place until the 1920s! That’s when people not only decided that little kids needed garments that responded to their bodies and abilities, not just tiny versions of adult clothing, but also began to think about children as living in a really specific stage of life, one quite distinct from adulthood. In fact, my strappy jelly sandals with their easy buckle were the descendents of children’s shoes from the 1920s, when little buckled sandals and shoes became a popular alternative to laced shoes for kids who hadn’t yet learned to tie a bunny knot.
You’ll be delighted to learn that I have, in fact, mastered tied shoes and have moved on from velcro and slip-on shoes so popular with the kindergarten set, dear reader. And yet, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss my purple glitter jelly sandals - the sense of control they gave me, and how unabashedly I liked them, how pretty I thought them. If you see a pair in your worldly travels, you could let me know.
Jennifer