Figure 1.--The girls here are in costume, I'm not sure about the boy. They all wear strap shoes as playwear with white socks.
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Figure 1.--The girls here are in costume, I'm not sure about the boy. They all wear strap shoes as playwear with white socks. |
Strap shoes today are primarily seen as a dressy shoe style. This was also the case in the 19th century. Starap shoes were at first worn by younger children as an inside shoe. They would not stand up to rought outdoorwear. Boys, even younger boys in the late 19th century wearing Fauntleroy suits, might wear heavier boot like shoes. Starp shoes became increasingly common for formal wear in the early 20th century. After World War I (1914-18), strapshoe styles appeared for play. They were often red, brown , and blue and work with white socks. The English literary character Christopher Robin was often depicted playing in strap shoes. By the 1940s, however, they were increasingly being seen as a dress shoe although younger children might still wear them as a play shoe.
Strap shoes today are primarily seen as a dressy shoe style. This has not always been the case. In the years before sneakers, boys also wore them as a play shoe.
Children in the 1920s began wearing strap shoes for informal occasions and play. Styles varied. Some wore the single trap Mary Jane style, while older boys wore the "T" strap school sandal style. Colors varied. The most common color for play were red strap shoes, but dark blue and other ones were also worn. These shoes were worn until the 1960s when most boys stopped wearing them--except for boys from very rich families.
The image of the strap shoe has changed significantly over time. A HBC reader reports, "Some of the HBC strap shoe pages reminded me that in the royal palace in Stockholm. Special shoes were worn by tourists so as not to ruin the beautiful floor. In many of the Newport homes in Rhode Island (luxury summer homes for wealthy American families), children wore special shoes not to ruin the valuable rugs and floors and
different shoes outside. Maybe strap shoes were inside shoes and the more rugged shoes were outside shoes. In the older Fauntleroy pictures where children were wearing heavy boots most of those were taken in studios. If so, it would make sense for them to wear
outside shoes. In the pictures of Fauntleroy dressed boys taken in homes, many appear to be wearing strap shoes. I do not have any hard facts for this speculation, just HBC images." Indeed, this is a subject that needs to be addressed. Some differences are country based. Strap shoes, for example, seem much more common in France than America. I get the impression that strap shoes were an indoors shoe. Especially in America it was also seen until after the turn of the 20th century as a shoe for very young children. Another factor nay be that because a boy had to go to the studio to have his portrait taken that his outdoor shoes were worn. At any frate, this is a subject that requires nore work.
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