Figure 1.--This American boy, probably in the 1920s, wears single-strap shoes with a white short pants sailor suits. |
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Strap shoes are best known as as footwear with one horizontal strap. These one-strap shoes became known as Mary Janes in the United States. They were not all done as single-strap shoes. We see strap shoes done with a different number of straps. One and two straps were, however, by far the most common, but there were also shoes with multiple staps. This was most common in the late 19th and early 20-th centuries before shoe styles became more stanfardized. Another complication is a center verical bar. Analizing these shoes is complicated by all the different variants as well as the mutiple terms for these shoes, such as sandals and slippers.
The classic strap shoe is a one bar instep strap. There was also an ankle-strap shoe that became popular dyring the late-219th and early 20th century. The most common style of strap shoe had a strap which crossed the foot at the instep. This is the first style of strap shoes to appear and is the classic style for the shoe. The width of the strap varies on this style. Some strap were quite narrow, others had very wide straps. These shoes were worn by younger children throughout the 19th century. They were first commonly worn by boys about the turn of the 19th century with long pants skeleton suits. After the 1840s they were mostly worn by very young boys and girls, but increased in popularity in the 1890s when they began to be worn with Fauntleroy suits and other dressy children's wear. They were worn by both boys and girls in the early 20th century--especially boys from affluent families. For a while the classic instep strap style was elcipsed bt the ankle-strap shoe. These ankle-straps were especially popular in America. The classic insteo-strap shoe reemerged as the standard style in the 1920s. These were commonly a dress shoe, but we also see them bing worn as a play shoe. Hosiery styles varied.
While the single-strap shoes were by far the most common type of strap shoe, we also see quite a number of images of double strap shoes. These were always the instep-strap style. We do not see double-strap shoes in the ankle-strap style. There were both double strap shoes with and without a center supporting strap. We see these doubke straps shoes without a supporting strap in the late 19th century. We see these shoes with various numbers of straps. The double straps were most common. We see them less commonly after the turn-of-the 20th century. This is a variant we rarely see especially after the 1910s. We see these done more as play sandals than as dress shoes. The style without the center strap was commonly a dress shoe. The style with the center strap was more commonly a play style, but it was occassionally wore for informal dress occassions as well. There were, however, variations with a center supporting strap. Notably the two srap shoe with a center supporting strap became more of a play shoe and thus we refer to it as a sandal. Sears and other marketers used the term "barefoot sandals". We have seen these shoes worn for dress or casual dress occassions, but more common was usage as a play sandal. We note these with both a full and half center piece.
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There were, however, a variety of other styles of strap shoes. We note many strap shoes in the late 19th century with multiple straps. This was primarily a style for very young children, although women's shoes were sometimes done with multiple straps. These multiple straps shoes were a common dress style for very young childern. Older children usually wore high-top shoes.These were usually two-bar shoes, but we have seen these shoes with three or more bars, normally without a supporting center strap. After the turn of the century the straps became standardized at either one or two and yoy rarely see children with shoes that had three or more bars.
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