Wedding Slippers.
When the Revolutionists in France set about altering and simplifying costume, they did away with shoe-buckles, and fastened their shoes with plain strings. Minister Roland, one day in 1793, was about to present himself to Louis XVI while he was wearing shoes with strings. The old Master of Ceremonies, scandalized at having to introduce a person in such a state of undress, looked despairingly at Dumouriez, who was present. Dumouriez replied with an equally hopeless gesture, and the words, “Hélas! oui, monsieur, tout est perdu.”
President Jefferson, with his hateful French notions, made himself especially obnoxious to conservative American folk by giving up shoe-buckles. I read in the New York Evening Post that when he received the noisy bawling band of admirers who brought into the White House the Mammoth Cheese (one of the most vulgar exhibitions ever seen in this country), he was “dressed in his suit of customary black, with shoes that laced tight round the ankle and closed with a neat leathern string.”
When shoe-strings were established and trousers were becoming popular, there seemed to be a time of indecision as to the dress of the legs below the short pantaloons and above the stringed shoes. That point of indefiniteness was filled promptly with top-boots. First, black tops appeared; then came tops of fancy leather, of which yellow was the favorite. Gilt tassels swung pleasingly from the colored tops. Silken tassels—home made—were worn. I have a letter from a young American macaroni to his sweetheart in which he thanks her for her “heart-filling boot-tossels”—which seems to me a very cleverly flattering adjective. He adds: “Did those rosy fingers twist the silken strands, and knot them with thought of the wearer? I wish you was loveing enough to tye some threads of your golden hair into the tossells, but I swear I cannot find never a one.” The conjunction of two negatives in this manner was common usage a hundred years ago; while “you was” may be found in the writings of our greatest authors of that date.
In one attribute, women’s footwear never varied in the two centuries of this book’s recording. It was always thin-soled and of light material; never adequate for much “walking abroad” or for any wet weather. In fact, women have never worn heavy walking-boots until our own day. Whether high-heeled or no-heeled they were always thin.
The curious “needle-pointed” slippers which are pictured [here] were the bridal slippers at the wedding of Cornelia de Peyster, who married Oliver Teller in 1712. Several articles of her dress still exist; and the background of the slippers is a breadth of the superb yellow and silver brocade wedding gown worn at the same time.
When we have the tiny pages of the few newspapers to turn to, we learn a little of women’s shoes. There were advertisements in 1740 of “mourning shoes,” “fine silk shoes,” “flowered russet shoes,” “white callimanco shoes,” “black shammy shoes,” “girls’ flowered russet shoes,” “shoes of black velvet, white damask, red morocco, and red everlasting.” “Damask worsted shoes in red, blue, green, pink color and white,” in 1751. There were satinet patterns for ladies’ shoes embroidered with flowers in the vamp. The heels were “high, cross-cut, common, court, and wurtemburgh.” Some shoes were white with russet bands. “French fall” shoes were worn both by women and men for many years.