Shoes

Unknown

1880–85 · leather · Costume Institute

An interesting combination of styles, colors, and textures distinguishes this pair of infant's shoes. The silk-backed cutout on the vamp and the bronze kid make reference to women's "chameleon shoes", which were worn extensively around the 1860s. So too does the white topstitching, although radically simplified from the looping chain stitch found on women's shoes. While chameleon shoes featured elaborate bilaterally symmetrical cutouts, here the ornament has been reduced to a very simple snowflake form. The cut of the upper emulates an adult latchet-tie shoe, but includes the buttoned ankle strap commonly found only on childrenswear at the time.

Artist

Unknown

Date

1880–85

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 Mrs. Hollis K. Thayer, 1958