If the Shoe Fits
I’m no Imelda Marcos shoe collector by any stretch of the imagination BUT I like shoes. It’s Art Deco Weekend in Hawke’s Bay so the reminders of yesteryear are definitely at the forefront of everything that’s happening around me at the moment. Shoes are fascinating if for no other reason than as a fashion accessory in that period they were either sensible or show-stoppers. There didn’t seem to me to be anything in between.
The shoe science boys will tell you 8 facts for free about shoes that I think are worth repeating. Firstly, “There are two types of stores Specialists and Discounters. Specialist stores have highly trained staff who really know about sports shoes and how to look after you, they have slow motion video equipment to look at how your feet move when you walk or run and carry the widest range of high quality shoes. Discounters will generally be only $10 cheaper.
When running, forces through your back, hips, knees, legs and feet increase three times your body weight, so the risk of jarring is greater. Increased forces also causes foot pronation. While foot pronation is very normal, excessive pronation causes all sorts of injuries. Walkers are at risk of shin pain and require a very flexible forefoot to take stress off the front leg. Tennis shoes require support on the outside to stop ankle rolls when moving sideways on the court and a sole that both slides and grips. Thirdly, If you have an injury, there are shoe features that will help.
Each foot has 26 bones operated by tendons and muscles. Everyone’s feet move differently. Your foot will hit the ground 500 times per km. If your shoe causes your foot to hit the ground poorly, you may develop injury. To get that feeling of walking on air, the fit must be right so always checking the length, width and arch support is critical. Exercising is tough enough on your lungs without your feet giving up before you do.
Lots of shoes look great but don’t suit your biomechanics and therefore fail to support your foot correctly when you walk or run. In the right shoes you can be walking on air and injury free. Life will be good. Finally, The wrong shoes are a waste of money and let’s face it, they’re not cheap!” SO, girl-readers, I’m re-presenting the facts so as to discharge my duty of care to your feet when you completely disregard their professional advice!
Girls and heels are a fact of modern life. I think someone just ought to get on and invent something that enables them to wear them without the crippling effects. Me, I wore high heels in my youth, the window of time looking back was quite small. When I started travelling they proved inadequate for the task of range and mountain climbing and were prone to more than a little wear and tear during outdoor pursuits of kayaking, rock climbing (though I did wear them for fundraising purposes once in Sydney in an Indoor Rock climbing set-up that also snaffled our group $5k.)
Sound hard? Technically speaking, it wasn’t! As long as I got my toe hold with the front of the shoe I was fine, the added length of the shoe heel seemed not to cause too much finger collateral ligament strain and anyway, it was all in a good cause. I don’t recall there being any pain after the event but there’s been a sufficiently long enough gap since then for me to forget if there was. Sort of like child birth in a woman’s recollection! I rarely wear heels these days despite the rest of life towering over me but I do appreciate good ones when I see them.
It’s hard to tell what girls will be wearing on Saturday (the day of the vintage car parade) but chances are I’ll see anything from vintage retro shoes with rounded toes and a clunky heel in a combo of brown suede, leather and tan leather to comfortable low heeled pumps also with rounded toes. Shoemakers then still had a girl’s ‘reasonable’ comfort in mind!
Then there’s the three-tone brown leather peep toe pumps, elegant vintage t-strap shoes with sling-backs and a 3 inch stiletto heel, preppy genuine cobra skin low kitten heels, you’d be in shoe heaven just to see these blasts from the past go by! Or maybe vintage pump pointy-toe and lower spike heels, Capezio dance shoes with a small Louis heel and ankle strap or perhaps even a Jacques Heim couture spike heel in brown with black trim. To my mind the best thing would be spying a vintage 1920’s high-heeled Oxford shoe with 3 inch Louis heel and a tie front. Classically period is all I can say.
The Men’s shoe range, though smaller, I think was a particularly stylish one. Personally I liked the Rust Cordovan Wingtip (USA) vintage Oxford shoe or Brogues as we know them here in New Zealand. The term ‘wingtip’ is derived from the toe cap pattern, which forms a W and resembles the profile of spreading bird wings. The word brogue is derived from the Scottish and Irish Gaelic word bróg, meaning shoe.
A distinction should be noted between brogues and brogueing. Brogueing refers to punched patterns along the seams and outer layers of the shoe uppers while a brogue is not only a fully-punched shoe but also has Derby (open) lacing. The terms full brogue and half brogue do not necessarily refer to brogues in the traditional sense just defined but instead to the degree of broguing on the shoe allowing for example full brogue shoes with closed (not open) lacing.
Brogues proper are traditional men’s country shoes, less formal than even brogued Oxford shoes, or shoes with less than full broguing. As outdoor shoes, they are normally made in brown and are not traditionally worn in town (though the more formal Oxford laced shoe is commonly made in black even when fully brogued, and is now worn in town).
Brogueing itself, the punching that forms the patterns in the shoes, has its origin in the boglands common in Scotland and Ireland; the wearers had to step in and out of bogs all day and needed a shoe that would allow good drainage. Today brogueing is used to emphasise the seams that define the design of a shoe.
This punching occurs in various patterns: full brogues, or wingtips (the term applies strictly only to full brogues), have a toe cap in the W shape, with punched patterns on various sections of the shoe, such as the heel counter; half brogues have a normal straight-edged toe cap and less punching; finally, other terms such as quarter-brogue and so on may be used to describe progressively less brogueing. Brogueing is normally only applied to laced shoes, typically Oxfords or Derbys, but may sometimes by used on loafers or women’s shoes.”
Well, I think the weekend is going to be a ‘shoe-in’ so if you’re in the area, come and help us celebrate, here in the Bay we extend our hospitality to one and all. You’re Welcome.
