I happened across an interesting book, The Unfashionable Human Body, by Bernard Rudofsky (originally published in 1971). It mainly concerns the many ways we cover or modify our bodies, and as part of that it has a section on footwear.
I thought folks might find part of that interesting.
The first thing he says is that in the late 1800s, people didn’t think it was arches that needed support, but ankles:
Every generation has its own demented ideas on supporting some part of the human anatomy. Older people still remember a time when everybody went through life ankle-supported. Young and old wore laced boots. A shoe that did not reach well above the ankle was considered disastrous to health. What, one asks, has become of ankle support, once so warmly recommended by doctors and shoe salesmen? What keeps our ankles from breaking down these days of low-cut shoes?
But then he goes on to the silliness of arch supports.
Ankle support has given way to arch support; millions of shoe-buying people are determined to “preserve their metatarsal arch” without as much as suspecting that it does not exist. Nevertheless, the fiction of the arch is being perpetuated to help sell “supports” and “preservers” on an impressive scale.
The dread of falling arches is, however, a picayune affair compared to that other calamity, the feet’s asymmetry. I am not talking about the difference within a single pair of feet, that is, the difference between the right and left foot of a person; I mean the asymmetry of the foot itself.
He also observes how shoes deform the feet, and how “civilization” seems to consider normal feet, that is, bare feet, as counter to progress.
By some atavistic quirk of nature, every normal baby is born with undeformed feet. The forepart of the foot—measured across the toes—is about twice as wide as the heel. The toes barely touch each other and are as nimble as fingers. Were the child able to keep up his toe-twiddling, he might easily retain as much control over his feet as over his hands. Not that we see anything admirable in nimble toes; they strike us as freakish perhaps because we associate prehensile feet with primitive civilizations. To our twisted mind, the foot in its undamaged state is anachronistic, if not altogether barbaric. Ever since the shoe became the badge of admission to Western civilization—in rural countries such as Portugal and Brazil the government exhorts peasants to wear shoes in the name of progress—we look down on barefooted or sandaled nations.
Shoes make the feet:
Since wearing shoes is synonymous with wearing bad shoes, the modern shoe inevitably becomes an instrument of deformation. The very concept of the modern shoe does not admit of an intelligent solution; it is not made to fit a human foot but to fit a wooden last whose shape is determined by the whims of the “designer.”
Also:
In both the manufacturer’s and the customer’s opinion the shoe comes before the foot. It is less intended to protect the foot from cold and dirt than to mold it into a fashionable shape. Infants’ very first shoes are liable to dislocate the bones, and bend the foot into the shoe shape. The child does not mind the interference; “never expect the child to complain that the shoe is hurting him,” says podiatrist Dr. Simon Wikler, “for the crippling process is painless.” According to a ten-year study of the Podiatry Society of the State of New York, 99 percent of all feet are perfect at birth, 8 percent have developed troubles at one year, 41 percent at the age of five, and 80 percent at twenty; “we limp into adulthood,” the report concludes. “Medical schools,” says Dr. DePalma, “fail almost completely in giving the student a sound grounding and a sane therapeutic concept of foot conditions.” And in Military Medicine one reads that “there has been no objective test that could be readily incorporated in physical examinations, or taught to medical students, pediatricians, or physicians in military and industrial medicine, that would enable them to recognize deformities of the foot . . .” In sum, physicians leave it to the shoe designer to decide the fate of our feet.
That’s right. Shoes are not really there to protect against cold and dirt, but to be fashionable.
And herewith is his conception, drawn for him by Bernard Pfriem, of what shoe designers really wished feet looked like.
Yup. That’s what they think feet are supposed to look like.
Good find Bob! It is intresting the weird ideas people have come up with over the years. I think it is quite intesting as whell how you highlighted that western culture looks down on bare feet as primitive.
Oh B.T.W Thank you for another good idea. Your blog on how feet should look and how fasion dictates things led to my blog for today. Your idea indirectly led me to ask questions about how people judge others.
The “crippling process is painless.” I love that line. Cheers!
Hi Bob, I’ve seen this too! My own feet are considered deeply unattractive by others. I love them! I have rather large bunions. Curiously though, they do not hurt at all. On the contrary, I think they are an asset particular to me and in addition, they are and always have been (before yoga) extremely prehensile. My 7 year old did not wear shoes for the first 4 years of his life and struggled with that concept a lot when we returned from abroad and he began school. My 1 year old we struggle to by shoes for because she is wider than the widest fitting. Think I’ve just found the answer to that one, thank you!
I really must read this book… Thank you for sharing these wonderful excerpts!
[…] in our 20s and 30s, but our life’s habits tend to come home to roost as we enter our 40s and 50s. This article gives a great overview on shoe styles through the ages and how misconceptions about healthy feet […]
I have a 7-month-old, and I want her to be barefoot as long as possible. I want to see what feet look like when they’ve been bare for years, from birth!
Sarah C., let your daughter be barefoot everywhere. Her feet will be so much healthier for it. My 3-year-old only wears shoes 9 hours a week when he is at preschool. I’d rather he go barefoot there too, but I am not sure how to accomplish that. I was raised by a mother who believed that everyone needs a sturdy pair or supportive shoes… One more another example of her being wrong. 🙂
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