These fantastic shoes are two of my favourite objects in the collection.  One of the pair is on show at Wakefield Museum. Until the end of May, the other is in Knottingley library’s Mini Museum display Best Foot Forward.

We’re not sure exactly how old the shoes are, but costume source books say that they were probably made between about 1714 and 1760. Like most shoes of the time, they are made of fabric. Shoes like these didn’t last long as they were so delicate. Women often wore overshoes called clogs to protect their shoes. You can see how this clog fits this shoe exactly. The clog is made from hand-stitched leather and from the same fabric as the shoe.

A fairly rich woman probably owned these shoes, and didn’t wear them much at all. Wealthy women never had to walk far and wore uncomfortable clothes that made physical movement difficult.

In the 1700s, wealthy Britons’ clothes were influenced by French fashions. Underwear with whalebone struts squeezed women’s bodies into fashionable shapes. Their pinched waists looked even smaller because their skirts stuck out over hooped petticoats.

Click on the 'Example of a dress from the 1700s' link to the right to see the kind of dress that could have been worn with these shoes.

Erica Ramsay - Outreach Curator