Figure 1.--Here and English mum during the summer has taken her children into the shoe for new sandals for the school year beginning in September. The boy wears white socks with trainers (sneakers), but will not wear white socks with the sandals. The photograph iwas used in a 1992 advertisement. The casual outfits the boys are wearing to go shopping here are not the outfirs they would actually wear their new sandals with.

English boys wearing sandals had various approaches. Many boys during the summer would wear them without socks. A few schools adopted the sockless aproach, but most wore knee or ankle socks. Many schools required sandals for everyday school wear, both in summer and winter. Outside of school, sandals were most commonly wore in the summer, especially in France. British boys wore the for play mostly during the summer and might refer to them as sand shoes. Many boys would wear them to school year round and, as a result, they became known as school sandals. Some schools used them as the everyday footwear and had the boys wear proper shoes for special occassions. Both boys and girls wore them. Girls wore them with white socks, both ankel socks and knee socks. Only younger boys wore sandals with whire socks. They geneally wore grey socks to school. Most English boys by the 1970s had begun wearing sneakers (trainers) for summer or genel ply wear. Sandals were, however, still worn at many school. A reader writes, "Judging by the trainers' style, I would say this photo dates back to the mid-1980s, if not later." Its a little hard getting a good look. Two other clues here are the man's hair and black and white photography. Both it seems to me are more consistent with the 1970s than the 80s. The sandalslso look to us more like the 70s to us. Note the narrow center strap. Many but not all center straps by the 1980s were much wider. Our reader adds, "I agree that the shop assistant's hairstyle looks more like the 1970s. But on top of the sports shoes, the boys' clothes are definitely mid-1980s onward, to say nothing of their haircut. As for black and white, it's probably a newspaper photograph (notice the grain). By the way, the shoebox on the bottom left is from Start-Rite, a famous British brand of shoes for children, so this picture may be from an advertisement." Our reader tells us, "I've found where that picture comes from! It's on page 57 of the book 'Start-Rite – Two centuries of shoemaking'. The caption says that Start-Rite officials are testing the 1992 styles on children's feet."

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Created: 4:10 AM 1/20/2009
Last updated: 4:41 AM 4/13/2010