Women from the Ankle Down

Women love shoes. But how did we get here? In her interview with James Lipton for Inside the Actor’s Studio, Jennifer Aniston identified shoes as her number-one turn-on; on a recent episode of Ice-T and Coco, Coco recorded a techno homage to her favorite designers called “Shoe Freak.” There are countless fansites, Tumblrs, and online magazines devoted to shoes and the women who covet them. But what is it about footwear that leaves women of all sizes, demographics, political affiliations and style tribes so breathless? Women from the Ankle Down answers that question by telling the story of shoes in the Twentieth Century.

Part social history, part fashion history and part pop-culture celebration, this book opens in the rural village of Bonito, Italy where a young Salvatore Ferragamo set out to change the lanscape for footwear, and ends in New York City, where a fictional socialite named Carrie Bradshaw refused to settle for Mr. Wrong and felt entitled to treat herself to expensive shoes. It makes pit-stops in Hollywood, where Judy Garland first slipped on her ruby slippers; in New Jersey, where Nancy Sinatra heard something special in a song about boots; and in the streets of Manhattan, where the 1980 transit strike caused women to kick off their heels and step into new cutting-edge athletic shoes for their commutes. The book explores the stories behind these historical moments, and draws in the design innovations and social changes that gave each one its lasting significance and appeal.

The story of shoes in the past hundred-plus years is the story of women, told from the ankle down. Beginning with the well-heeled Suffragettes in the 1910s, women have fought for-and undoubtedly have won-greater freedom and mobility. That struggle exploded in the 1960s with the Women’s Liberation Movement, and continued into the 1980s as women fought for high-level jobs and equal pay. It culminated in the new millenium, when women were able to fully embrace their personal agency. As women demanded more options in their day-to-day lives, different kinds of shoes became available. And as culture embraced, and then rejected, and then reinterpreted new, feminine strides, footwear styles emerged that reflected these advances, and allowed women to express their various points of view.

Featuring interviews with Nancy Sinatra, John Varvatos, Steve van Doren of Vans, Lisa Mayock of Vena Cava, Ty McBride of Jeffrey Campbell and Solestruck, award-winning costume designer Suttirat Larlarb (of Slumdog Millionaire), Oscar-winning costume designer Patrizia van Brandenstein, costume designer Mona May (Clueless, The Wedding Singer), Dr. Martens historian Martin Roach, Bata Shoe Museum curator Elizabeth Semmelhack, FIT museum director Valerie Steele, along with others, and a cast of characters that ranges from Marilyn Monroe to Jane Fonda.