This is a special one. Northampton Shoe Museum’s archive gathers some of the most amazing pieces of footwear in history, and especially unique is their collection of exhibition and contest shoes from the 1800’s. Shoegazing has been given exclusive access to photograph and share these remarkable footwear widely for the first time ever.
Northampton Museum and Art Gallery is home to one of the largest collections of shoes and shoe heritage in the world, where the shoe section is often referred to as the Northampton Shoe Musum. Arts Council England designates the collection as being of local, national and international importance. The regular shoe exhibitions are always super interesting, and I highly encourage anyone with a shoe interest to pay it a visit if you have the chance. But the museum has much more than this. In their archive they have over 15,000 shoes from ancient Egypt up until today, and on top of that a lot of other shoe related items, all from machines to photos of old factories etc.
In a recent visit to Northampton the museum kindly gave me access to the archive and the opportunity to take photos and films to share here on Shoegazing and on my social media. I focused on their spectacular collection of old exhibition and contest shoes, containing fully handmade pieces that were built to push the makers, push the craft and reach new heights of shoemaking. These that were the inspiration of creating the World Championships of Shoemaking, which gladly has started a new era of creations of footwear where makers have an arena to showcase amazing skills and create new, exciting things within the shoemaking craft. Hopefully makers who enter the world champs can be inspired by seeing the museum pieces here. We are in talks with the museum to maybe bring some of these shoes to be showcased at the London Super Trunk Show some time, which would be awesome.
Archive shelves.
In this article I’ll share photos of a large part of the museum’s exhibition footwear, taken by me and Samuel Norsworthy. Many of these shoes have never been displayed openly, not in the museum’s exhibitions nor in photographs. I’m happy to be able to showcase these magic piece to a wider audience. In a future article, I will also share photos of other parts of the musum’s archive with regular factory-made shoes – still some spectacular ones there – from the first half of the 1900’s. But here all light is on the exhibition and contest shoes from the 19th century. Picture quality varies, due to a bit tricky light conditions, so we might not give the footwear full justice in all cases, but hopefully you’ll be given a good understanding of how impressive a lot of the pieces are.
Checking stitch density.
I’ve mainly used the description of the boots and shoes used by the museum, but in some cases this was very limited, so I added some to distinguish between them. Since in the 1800’s high boots was the standard footwear large parts of the western world for both men and women, and since it gave a large canvas to showcase craftsmanship on, there’ll be a lot of these. Worth noting is that you’ll won’t see a single machine stitch among all these, everything, also uppers, are fully handmade. And you’ll definitely see that wearability was not a factor in the shoemaking contests and exhibitions of old days. The article is long with loads of photos, you can open larger versions and zoom in if you wish. It’s a selection of the museum’s collection of exhibition pieces, not the complete one.
John N. Hefford, men’s Wellington boots, prize medal work at the Great Exhibition 1851
We start with one of the most famous footwear that are part of the museum’s exhibition collection. Made by John N. Hefford for the first Great Exhibition, which took place in London in 1851. Just imagine the effort that has gone into creating this pair (!) of boots with the superbly decorated shafts. As most footwear made at the time, they had symmetrical last shape.
Beaded side seam with red leather piece, same as at the top. A relatively low heel for the time.
The highest stitch density of the contrasting, handmade upper stitching is at a whopping 53 spi (stitches per inch), even if most of it is done at around 40 spi.
Close-up.
Very fine sole stitching, and as you’ll see on most of these footwear, the sole is super thin.
A description note together with the boots.
A look a the sole, which has a slim built up rounded waist, even if nothing extreme here.
Interestingly many of the exhibition shoes here have relatively thick heel lifts, even if you’ll see several exceptions as well.
The side seam.
Beautiful work.
Nicely decorated edges.
J. Hewlitt, prize work, men’s black leather and yellow Morocco leather lace boot, 1873
Of all the superb pieces in the museum’s exhibition collection, this was probably my favourite. It has it all. A lovely design, some very complicated parts, and an incredibly high level of execution. It’s not over the top in any way, just very, very well-made. Crafted by J. Hewlitt in England 1873.
Look at this heel, and the line of nails placed neatly super close to the edge.
Sharp and distinct bottom. Here you see that the nails on the heel are so small you barely see them when from a bit further away.
Thin sole.
Contrasting sole stitching so one really get to see how clean it’s made, commonly seen on these pieces.
A different type of seam that places the stitches vertically, very complicated to get done right with this type of shape of the seam. The makers who did this fine stitching often worked with magnifying glasses to manage, and the best leathers back then could handle also very fine stitching.
More lovely hand stitch work.
Top view.
Here we have a heel with very thin lifts. Look at the impressive height of the waist.
There was a bunch of trends that you’ll see on several of the shoes in this article. For example this red beading here and the combination of black leather and yellowish Morocco leather.
Boot, prize Wellington boot, 1830-1849
Old two-tone prize work boot, maker unfortunately unknown. Sadly it has been split at the back, but still holds together reasonably.
Most footwear shown here are very small in size, both due to feet being smaller back then so footwear was smaller in general, and then for exhibition pieces one often made things even smaller since that required even more skill in many ways.
Square toe.
Here’s a really narrow waist.
Subtly decorated.
Proper high heel.
John N. Hefford, brown leather exhibition lace boots with stacked heels, 1850-1875
Another pair by Hefford, lower lace-up boots with high heels (also men’s shoes had high heels during the 1800’s, but these would likely be women’s shoes),
Here it’s more visible how small they are.
Also these uppers are very decorated, but more with only contrasting stitching.
If we go by the traditional definitions of waists this is a fiddle back waist. Originally fiddle back refers only to when the edge of the bevelled waist is painted to look more narrow from the side. The ridge in the middle was referred to as just that, ridge back. In this article I will use these old definitions since they were the ones used at the time. In this article you can read more about the history of waist definitions.
Curvy back.
Decorated shaft.
Exhibition boot, black and navy leather, 1800’s
A beautiful boot, which despite being very old looks quite modern in many ways. An exhibition boot that doesn’t scream. The boot tree has done it well.
Albeit symmetrical, almost looks like a last shape that one could see today.
Relatively distinctively marked welt.
A “statue” on the shaft.
Great stitch work. Spurs in good shape, despite being some 150 years old.
Narrow heel, not that built up.
Didn’t get that good photo of it, but the heel is decorated with what looks like ivory nails.
Edwin Starmer, Harpole, men’s black leather exhibition boot, 1900-1901
One of the younger pieces in the exhibition collection, from the first year of the 1900’s. An example of what a shame it is that they didn’t produce trees for many of these, so that the shape is deteriorated.
Skin stitched side seam.
Very slim, heavily built up waist.
Fiddle back (with the traditional terminology).
A bit thinner, neatly levelled stacks.
Sole edge with tiny stitches.
Hoby & Gullick, men’s black patent and yellow Morocco leather elastic sided boot, 1851
Super slender chelsea boot style, in a classic balmoral style design with an interesting half faux lacing.
Cool design.
Fine back seam.
Prince of Wales feathers stitched on the toe. The patent leather has changed texture through the years.
Pretty classic bottom.
Henry Pascoe for John Lobb, men’s black leather and cream Morocco leather elastic sided boot, 1872
Looks like a sibling to the above one, but made 20 years later. A beautiful boot with side elastics and faux lacing. Made by the maker Henry Pascoe, with closing by Jack Edwards, for John Lobb. They exhibited it in both Vienna and Paris, where it received gold medal prizes in both.
Super sharp ridge.
Here we have many really thin lifts building up the high heel. Very neatly made.
Faux lacing with leather laces.
V cap.
Again, the contrasting sole stitching gives a good view of how tidy the work is, despite the very tight stitches.
A letter that accompany the shoe, which gives a lot of info about it.
Magical piece.
Prize boot, black kid leather creased shaft, circa 1800
One of the more special designs, with the creased shaft.
Really cool stuff.
Proper sole stitching.
Exhibition boot, black and green leather, 1800’s
Another proof that boots that have trees in them survive so much better. This gorgeous boot could have been made yesterday almost, not some 150 years ago.
Profile view.
Note the interesting extra welt thing.
Upper stitching is superbly made.
Subtle decorations.
Natural sole finish, rounded waist, pretty small heel.
Heel is small but pretty standard make.
Men’s tan leather boot with black leather appliqué design, 1851
Button boot in a very light coloured leather of the shaft.
The sole is the most special part, beautiful design and very well-made.
Pretty slim waist.
A small, slim shoe.
A ridge back heel, which we’ve seen several of in the World Championships of Shoemaking. Done already during the 1800’s.
Lovely buttons.
Exhibition boot, black leather hollow heel, 1800’s
Talking about not wearable stuff. Here we certainly have a boot made only for show. Even if it would have had trees, it would’ve been very narrow and slim.
Small and slim…
Stitched seat.
Impressively built heel.
Heel is like a very narrow horse shoe heel.
The whole underside.
You can see where the toe puff is.
Mules, exhibition pieces, France, circa 1850
These two mules showcase some lovely stitch work, embroidery and other delicate stuff.
Looks comfortable, don’t they?
Size is very small, as you’ve come to understand that many of these exhibition pieces are.
The heel cover is stitched to the breast with these fine stitches.
Hand embroided.
Sock lining is something extra.
More muted shades on this one.
Prize boot in London, 1810
These boots aren’t in good condition, but still worth to show. They are 215 years old, British prize work from 1810.
Here the bottom part of one boot, where the shaft sadly has been torn off.
Tightly stitched uppers.
Super slim exhibition piece.
This is to secure the shank inside the shoe.
Special heel, with ridge shape of the back and interesting breast shape.a
Exhibition boot, black and white leather, 1800’s
A bit sturdier boot, with bone white top of the shaft and slightly echivogue decorations.
Square waist was a bit rarer in this collection, nice to see it here as well.
Thicker sole, means more skill is needed to create fine sole stitching.
Contrasting upper stitching.
Side upper.
Men’s black and green leather jockey boot, prize work, 1840-1849
From this view the heel block looks rather sturdy on these jockey boots from the 1840’s.
A closer side view of the heel.
Seen from below, one can see that the heel is rather neat.
View of the breast of the heel.
Pointy toe.
Delicate welt.
Exhibition boot, black leather green topline, 1800’s
The final footwear of this article, is this nicely crafted quite subtly designed tall boot.
Nice design of the shaft top line.
Decorations.
The patent leather on the lower part of the boot isn’t in the best condition.
Proper heel.
Ridge back waist.
Congratulations !
Thank you for the photographs, lots of study material here ( hours ). Such an important collection, some never seen before.
Perhaps in the long run, you could partner with the Museum to produce an illustrated book with studio photographs ?
The V&A also have some prize work shoes and boots, but badly displayed at the bottom of a case in the costume section.
This level of craftsmanship, design and style should be celebrated.
Neil MacGregor: Cheers! Yeah, so much greatness for sure. That would be cool, at least in some way to have proper studio photos and films of them in some way.
Yeah, V&A has some nice stuff up. I also visited when they had the Pleasure and pain exhibition a few years back, then they showed a bit more. Other good ones are Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto and Powerhouse in Sydney.
Fantastic article Jesper, so many wonderful photos and details. Thank you for dedicating the time to cataloguing these, they deserve more public exposure.