Figure 1.--We have noted many Austrian children wearing strap shoes, bith as shoes abd as sandals. We begin to see some boys wearing "T"-stap sandals in the 1930s. The photgraph here is undated, but we would guess was taken in the 1930s.

We have only limited information on Austrian sandals at this time. As far as we can tell, footwear trends, including sandals, in Austria are essentially the same as in Germany. Our limited number of Austrian images makes it difficult to assess Austrian trends at this time. We see quite a number of Austrian children, both boys and girls, wearing strap shoes in the early 20th century. These seem to have been worn as both strap shoes and sandals. We also notice open-toe sandals, but they were not as common. The first example we have founs were two boys from an unidentified nobel family in 1908. We also notice "T"-strap shoes. These seem to have been more of a sandal or leisure wear style. As in Germany. there seem to have been some social-class connotations. As our major source of information is black and white photography, we are unsure about colors at this time. A reader asks, "With the shorts being so long, are you certain it is the thirties (probably early 1930s than)." Well there is no way of knowing. The snapshot could I think have been taken in the late 20s. Short pants were, however, quite varied in the 1930s. We see some boys wearing shorter shorts, but we also see boys wearing longer shorts as well.

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Created: 12:13 AM 4/28/2006
Last updated: 3:35 AM 6/6/2013