Featured Foot binding shoes?

Again....more stuff from my Mother-in-law! We found a box FULL of tiny shoes. Some appear to be foot binding shoes. (that I'm posting here) There are also other very tiny pin cushion shoes, tiny shoes that are made to look real (real materials, etc, but only about a few inches long) I've never seen anything like them, and they look very old. I'll have to post them later, it's going to take some time!

Anyway, I thought I'd start with these. The first ones seem like foot binding shoes. They measure about 6 in long and 1 3/4 in across at the heal. They're made of silk, and the souls are real leather. The second shoes are tiny, and not sure if they're foot binding or not. They measure 5 in long, and the toes curl up. They feel like wood covered in a velvet type material. The soles are a silky type material. The third is what I've researched as being a Lotus type of foot binding shoe. Unfortunately, there is only one. It measures 7 in long overall, but the soul part itself is 4 1/2 in long.

I'd appreciate any info! What country they're from, if the second are actually foot binding, child's shoes, etc. I'm pretty sure the Lotus one is Chinese. Thinking the first ones are as well, but not sure. I could be wrong, but I thought China was the only country who did foot binding, but again.......I don't know for sure. Thanks!!

 

i agree with the last one..being a chinese foot binder..

 

I know nothing about your interesting shoes but your post started me down the Google rabbit hole.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...aptured-beautiful-photos.html#v-3612969927001

 

I read a book once called Sunflower and the Secret Fan. It's not a true story, but it WAS historically real, and it explained the whole food binding thing. It took place in the 1850s, and it explained what little girls went through to have their feet bound, etc. I'm SO glad I didn't live there in those days. It was HORRIBLE! Those poor little girls. They started the process when they were little girls, starting with breaking their toes and making them walk in the shoes until the toes healed that way. One little girl lost her Sister, because she got an infection from it, and her parents ignored her complaints, and said she was being a baby. Horrible! And I don't even know how men can find deformed feet sexy!

 

I visited China in 1980 - it has just recently opened up to tourism. It was almost a primitive country back then, not at all like today's modern China. I saw old women with teeny tiny feet in my travels. As an American with relatively large feet, it was painful to think of them being bound.

 

I just have to say this to soothe my soul - the word for the bottom of your feet is: sole.

 

HA! Thanks! I DO know the difference, I just didn't catch it. LOL

 

Yes, I can't imagine. And from reading that book, it was really interesting to see their point of view. In THEIR eyes, a lady with unbound feet looked funny. They said they had "big, floppy feet that flopped like a fish. So unattractive." LOL It was also a sign of poverty, and only servants and "low lifes" had unbound feet. So they looked down on it.

 

And I don't even know how men can find deformed feet sexy!

They still do, with 4 inch stilettos ...

You should look into ' wasp waist ' ....& relive what men did to women right here....with whale bone corsettes ...in the name of beauty !!

 

Yikes! I'm so glad we live in today's world. lol

 

I am so glad I wear a size 5 or 5 1/2 shoe after seeing that. But usually it is one of the hardest sizes to come by and find.

That waist thing looks terrible. There are some celebrities who nowadays wear too tight corsets and dr's have warned them they are doing damage.

 

In Toronto there is the Bata Shoe Museum. Don't know if they'd be willing to help or not, but you could ask:
http://batashoemuseum.ca/

 

A former curator of the Bata Shoe Museum is a member of the Vintage Fashion Guild. You could try posting these photos in their discussion forum, he’s sure to chime in with some helpful info.

 

My wife worked in the 1980's in the Chinatown care centre and told me there was an old lady there with tiny feet.

 

wasn't me. LOL

 

Thankfully, it is an illegal practice these days. Going back in my family tree, I had a relative with such bound feet. I feel nothing but contempt for the mindset that would allow such a thing to be considered desirable and drive a parent to willingly do that to their own child, though I do also understand the sociological environment and utter desperation some families faced back then in order to try and get ahead in life.

 

If the book Memoirs of a Geisha was accurate in this detail, the mangled feet with their broken bones sometimes stayed unhealed the woman's entire life & the lotus feet inside those shoes could be pretty unpleasant.

 

These things are sold to women on the notion that they make them more attractive, when what they really do is incapacitate them. In some cases literally hobble them. Then there's this:



The collar bones on some of these women are pushed so far down they can barely breathe.

 

The tiny feet were known as lotus feet.

 

Those deformed feet meant those women could hardly walk.
Many men feel threatened by women, especially strong, independent women. The more you take away from women, like their freedom of movement, the better those men feel. It gives them a sense of power.