Figure 1.-- I'm not sure about the date of this portrait. One source says 1947 another says "Classe Mme BAUVERT 1949-50". It is a good example of a verycommon pattern at French schools at the time. There are often a few children wearing sandals. They were usually closed-toe sandals, but there was a wide variety of styles.

We do not yet have much information on French closed-toe sandals. We note a lot of commercial postcards in the early 20th century of boys and girls wearing closed-toe sandals, often with white kneesocks. They were primarily the single bar style without a center strap. We note far fewer actual photographs of French boys wearing closed-toe sandals. Here we see a French boy wearing the English-style "T"-strap style in 1920. These seem to have been more common in the 1930s. We note some boys in the 1940s-60s wearing closed-toe sandals in school photographs, but they were usually a small minority. Here we see a class in the late 1940s (figure 1). Another good example is a school class we think in the early 1950s. Also we note French boys wearing a range of different styles. Unlike England there does not seem to have been an standard school sandal style. We note closed-toe sandals with one and two cross traps and with one or not center straps. We also note different colors.

Created: 7:21 PM 7/28/2005
Last updated: 7:21 PM 7/28/2005