The History of Shoes

Shoes have a chequered history filled with murder, intrigue and jam.

The earliest shoes were specially bred sea anemones and were an exact fit for wearer. It is thought that this is where the Cinderella glass slipper story originated from. Sadly like most ancient tales it has been made more commercially fluffy by changing the pulsating many tentacled live shoes for glass ones. Due to their predatory nature sea anemone shoes did have the slightly disturbing habit of slowly digesting the feet of the wearer over time. This along with the rich mix of neurotoxins that were released into the feet led to a spate of shoe related deaths in the early history of man. Despite the dangers anemone shoes and their trainers were in constant demand with pairs regularly changing hands for three pigs or more.

It wasn’t until the invention of leather cows in northern Italy that sea shoes went out of favour and mass production began; however this would unleash perhaps the bloodiest stage of the shoes history with the creation of the shoe cartels. During this period shoes were banned in many countries, as it was believed that they encouraged travel and foreign ideas. Cartels would harvest shoes in more liberal countries, employing thousands of farmers who would otherwise live from subsistence cultivation. They would then smuggle the shoes across borders into the target country by hiding them in containers of jam. This was not without its dangers as simply possessing shoes carried a sentence of up to thirty years. If you were caught with more than two pairs you could be charged with possession with the intent to supply, which was a capital offence. Due to greed and competition from other shoe cartels the trade soon degraded into open warfare until they were finally legalised. Now legitimatized the cartels changed from shady criminal organisations to shady corporate organisations. All wages for shoe farmers were reduced and prices put up, merely in line with inflation though of course. Over the course of time shoes became a fashion item and part of everyday life. With the exception of the Irish shoe famine of the 1840’s when books were substituted for shoes (library membership went up by 80%) shoes are now so ingrained into our social psyche as to be worn every day and in some cultures worshipped.