Appropriate Footwear

[DWFII]

For auhenticity, remember that shoes in 1745/6 were not disctinctive for ledt and right foot. I have a pair of fugawees that can be made in the original fashion, by gum.

You're probably quite correct in that, although right and left lasts may actually predate this time period...it went in cycles.

I might also add that for truly period shoes they need to be made of a waxed flesh calf--this is a very special treatment that actually bears little resemblance to what we would think of as "waxed" today. And the black colour came from, and was renewed by using, lampblack. Not dye. As far as I know no one is making that leather today...or even anything close. The last source, Kellett (?) in England retired some few years ago.

Furthermore, the shoes would probably not have been very good fitting and for more reasons than that they were straights. Unlined, little or no stiffener in the heel area and rough edges everywhere. What's more, they would have been hand sewn throughout...and on the uppers with what is known as "round closing" or "split and lift"--a type of edge or butt stitching that is not easily mastered or done much today.

Now...an opinion from someone who is not a reenactor: If a shoe doesn't meet all the above criteria, it is obviously not really authentic or true to the period. If it is not true to the period, then it is, in my opinion, not significantly more authentic or more desirable than a modern re-creation/reinterpretation of the style. It is simply posing...no less so than a modern recreation such as the shoe in the photo I posted...but without the comforts and technical advantages of another two hundred-fifty years of shoemaking evolution.

In Civil War reenacting there is a category of reenactor that is known as a BOB (Better Off Bowling) who might, for instance, wear a modern flannel shirt to a reenactment in an attempt to pass it off as authentically 19th century...or perhaps just "good enough."

Far better in my opinion, to try to recapture the spirit and the aesthetic of the period than to reach for authenticity with insufficient knowledge to actually pull it off....unless you are a committed reenactor--at which point you're probably already talking thread counts and dye sources.

I have not handled any of the shoes from any of the sites mentioned and I would not presume to critique them short of a closer inspection. But one of my best friends and colleagues is the head shoemaker at Colonial Williamsburg and I have a fairly privileged perspective on what the construction materials and techniques for the period were.