Shoes: Accessories Series

An impeccably researched history of shoes and fashionable footwear through the ages, with examples drawn from the Victoria & Albert Museum's outstanding collection

From Medieval leather poulaines and dainty Victorian satin slippers to the iconic platforms of the 1960s and the gravity-defying designs of today, shoes have always been for than just functional. Focusing on the V&A’s world-famour collection, Shoes explores the innovative and the elegant, the practical and the high-tech, and the way in which shoes have defines fashion moments throughout history.

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Shoes is an inspiring, impeccably researched and concise history of footwear through the ages. After a general introduction, chronological chapters illustrated throughout retrace the history of footwear from the Middle Ages to today, featuring shoes and boots that once belonged to both anonymous and famous male and female wearers, from battered old ‘chimney shoes’ hidden away for good luck to the elegant styles of the Renaissance, from Elizabethan mules to the first stilettos. A detailed glossary, bibliography and index conclude the book.

Contents List:
Introduction • 1. Medieval Gothic and the English Renaissance • 2. Heels, Buckles and Bows: The 17th Century • 3. Taste and Elegance: 1700 – 50 • 4. Fashion and Revolution: 1750 – 95 • 5. Form and Function: 1795 – 1836 • 6. Innovation and Experiment: 1837 – 1914 • 7. War and Glamour: 1914– 39 • 8. Street Style and Street Fashion: 1939 – 79 • 9. Style by Design: 1980 – 98 • 10. Contemporary Icons: 2000–The Present • Glossary • Selection Bibliography • Major Dress Collections Featuring Shoes • Authors’ Biographies • Acknowledgments • Index

About the Authors:

Lucy Johnston is an expert in historical dress and a former curator in the Department of Textiles and Dress at the V&A. She is now a freelance curator and museum consultant specializing in fashionable dress, shoes and rural workers’ clothing. Her publications include 19th-Century Fashion in Detail.
Linda Woolley specializes in early and medieval textiles and dress and has written and lectured widely in these fields. She is a former curator in the V&A’s Department of Textiles and Dress. She is the author of Life and Leisure in the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries.