Claude Coueny on the history of shoes: When shoes were neither left nor right

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Sometimes an idea is still in its infancy or is just “too big”. If you try anyway, “soon you’ll be standing next to your boots.” With age, “shoes are tight everywhere”, and the person is no longer “suitable for training”, but moves so slowly that “while walking you could wash your shoes”, until, finally, he “fell out of the shoes.”

The oldest references to shoes are over 40,000 years old. Our ancestors wrapped leather around their feet and calves – this was the forerunner of boots, but where the earth burned from the heat, palm leaf soles were tied under their feet – the forerunner of sandals. In Switzerland, the first remnants of leather shoes were discovered on the Schnidejoch in the Bernese Alps. It dates from around 4300 BC. from. Ötzi, a glacial mummy with a size 38 shoe, was a little older and tied his bearskin soles with “laces”.

Although already in antiquity it was known that a different form of footwear was needed for the left and right foot, this knowledge, like many other things, was lost in the Middle Ages. It was not until the early 19th century that physicians and anatomists published a controversy requiring a distinction between left and right when making shoes to prevent damage to the skeleton.

The soldiers of the Union Army have proven that it makes sense. During the American Civil War, they went further in anatomically designed shoes than southerners in regular shoes.

With the advent of industrialization in the 19th century, assembly line shoe production began. Prices have dropped, making good shoes affordable for the masses. However, tedious assembly line work in poorly ventilated workshops was unhealthy.

When the market was saturated, a plethora of unmistakable designs followed, with which buyers could stand out and express their individuality and attitude.

The CEO of Dax once told me, “When someone walks into my office, I pay attention to his teeth and then to his shoes.” If both are untidy, he gives him the shoe.

Claude Cueny (67) is a writer based in Basel. Most recently, his thriller Dirty Talk was released.

Source: Blick