China: The importance of female footware in post-footbinding Shanghai. Detail from a commercial calendar poster c. 1930

Foot binding, although notionally banned after the fall of the Qing Empire in 1911, continued in some remote areas for quite a few years under the Chinese Republic (1911-1949).

Not so in Shanghai, always the arbiter of modern tastes and fashion.

As a consequence, by the mid-1930s, Shanghai’s Zhejiang Road, Fujian Road and Nanjing Road had over one hundred shoe stores between them, with highly skilled shoemakers copying western styles, the most popular among these being high heels and open toe leather shoes.

A Shanghainese woman, dressed in qipao and walking in high heels, became the iconic look of the age, and these two kinds of footwear continued to be changed and innovated upon, becoming staples of the Shanghai fashion world.

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Supplier: CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Credit:

Pictures From History

Theme:

OLD SHANGHAI