Evening shoes

A.E. Little & Co.

ca. 1916 · leather · Costume Institute

Shoes with multiple straps had been favored in the 1880s, and appeared periodically thereafter. Their apogee, however, was the second half of the 1910s, when the length of fashionable skirts shortened, increasing the attention to the feet and, correspondingly, to the design of shoes and stockings. Cut-outs and various strappy effects began to appear in great variety, a trend which would escalate in the 1920s. Frequently found in black with black beads, this example of the multi-bar shoe is a bit more eye-catching in bronze leather with copper-tone beads. This pair of shoes bears the "Sorosis" imprint of A. E. Little & Co. of Lynn, Massachusetts, a center of American women's shoe manufacturing.

Artist

A.E. Little & Co.

Date

ca. 1916

Medium

leather

Culture

American

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Theodora Wilbour, 1932