Passionate feet: historic and cultural uses of red shoes, 1750-2004

Abstract

This study looks at how the historic and cultural uses of red shoes have contributed to the enduring potency of this footwear as object and symbol. Investigation covers the period 1750 to 2004 in the English-speaking and European societies of the West. The interdisciplinary cultural studies approach to dress history proposed by Breward informs the research, which draws on both material and textual objects as resources. These include the Museum of London and Northampton Shoe Museum collections; and literary, cinematic, musical, artistic and other cultural expressions using red shoes as an inspirational motif. Three primary expression form the main case studies: Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale The Red Shoes (1845); the ballet film The Red Shoes based around the story (Powell and Pressburger, 1948); and Dorothy’s ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939). The study demonstrates how an interrelated network of ambiguous, changing and contrasting meanings affect considerations of red shoes, through the identification and discussion of six different types. The broad analysis of relationships between uses of red shoes combines previous historiographic findings to present a new perspective on the topic.

Context for the study is established through discussion of uses and meanings of the colour red, some sexual, folkloric and psychological symbolisms of shoes, and the Masculine type. Male red shoes created a historic paradigm connecting red shoes first with authority, status, religion and power, and later with creative individuality. The Feminine red shoes type follows in two halves. Andersen’s story is used to explore the historical Negative aspects through a series of social transgressions concerned with sexuality, religion and gender roles. The ruby slippers and their continuing legacy, the concept of sovereignty, and the results of a survey evaluating current views on the ted shoe motif represent the more contemporary Positive type. The uses are found to be independence, transition and self-expression. Discussion of the Dance type then centres on the ballet film, the passionate sacrifices of dancers, and issues of autonomy and mobility. These three types form the dominant cultural meanings of ted shoes. The next chapter on Magic encompasses red shoes as fairytales, folklore and myth to highlight this quality underlying uses in the previous types. The final type is Children’s red shoes, typified by patent-leather Mary-Janes and concerned with a pre-gendered state of innocence and protection. Red shoes are shown in conclusion to symbolise four different fundamental qualities of magical-religious, active, sexual and transgressive uses, whose layered potency is summarised by the multiple meanings of the term passion.

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