Report – Oscaria 1940’s vintage boots

In my home country Sweden we haven’t had a proper shoemaking industry for many decades. But during the first half of the 1900’s it prospered, with one of the largest manufacturers being Oscaria. When I found a pair of Oscaria boots made in the 1940’s, never worn, in a vintage shoe store in Tokyo that fit me perfectly, I of course had to buy them. Here’s the story about the factory and the boots in question, with loads of photos.

When it comes to the shoe industry, a lot of things were different back during the first half of the 20th century. Industrialisation during the 1800’s had made it possible to manufacture footwear on a large scale, and basically every industrialised country had a large shoe manufacturing industry. Especially with two world wars taking place, every country needed production of their own for essentials like footwear (and countries that didn’t participate in the war exported to countries that did). Not even the depression could hinder the development of large shoemaking industries in the West.

In Sweden the shoe industry was at its peak in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, with 250 factories in the country, which at the time had a population of a bit over 6 million. Half of the factories were found in the county Örebro. One of the main players was Oscaria, which during the 1940’s had around 2,000 employees in three factories, two tanneries and 285 shoe stores around Sweden.

After this, things changed drastically, and quick. In the 1950’s Sweden imported 5% of the shoes sold – ten years later over 50% was imported, mainly from the far east. Oscaria was one of the last factories to close in Sweden, but in 1968 it was sold to the international company Bata, and in 1971 they moved the remaining production abroad. The last decades that the brand existed they sold pretty crappy cemented stuff.

The closing department at Oscaria’s Örebro factory. Picture: Knut Borg – Örebro Läns Museum / Digitalt Museum

One of Oscaria’s almost 300 stores. Picture: Digitalt Museum

Fast forward to 2025, I’m doing my annual trip to Japan, and this round I had time to go out again to Koenji, where there’s a huge amount of vintage clothing stores where also some are specialised in vintage shoes. Some stores are absolutely amazing, like Whistler / Chart, which is two stores next to each other with the same owner. Literally thousands of vintage shoes can be found here (plus vintage clothes), lots of American ones but also a bunch of stuff from other parts of the world.

When I browsed one of the stores and checked for some longwings in my size, I placed my tote bag on the floor. When I bent down to pick up the bag, my eyes catched a brown boot that stood a bit tucked away on the floor. I picked it up, and to my delight I noticed that it was an old Oscaria boot. I noticed the condition looked great, and realised it was never worn (quite rare in these shops, most are properly used shoes). Then I noticed the sizing, UK11, in K width (K was sometimes used for Extra wide back in the days, M was Very wide, but not that common nowadays). I’m normally a UK11. Wide.

A small part of one of Whistler / Chart’s vintage shoe stores in Koenji.

80 year old boots, still never worn, only tried on.

I tried them on, and they fit really well, which is rare for me with RTW shoes given I need a wider fit. What are the odds? First just the chance for me discovering these on the floor slightly hidden away, then that they were from Sweden from the city where my grandmother grew up during the first half of the 1900’s, unused, and that they were spot on in sizing? Of course I had to buy them. Price was €230 which is quite reasonable given how rare the boot are, even if it’s not something widely popular.

The store staff wasn’t certain but estimated the boots to be from the 1940’s. After doing some research myself with look, logos and heels used etc, that was also what I found. And finally I asked the cobblers at Björkmans Skomakeri here in Sweden with two guys that has great knowledge about Swedish shoe history, where one has worked at the Swedish shoe museum, and they also said that they would most likely be from the 1940’s.

A functional shape.

Both on the sole and other parts of the shoe one can see dents and marks that occurred through the years, some in the box and some likely when tried on. But as evident, they’ve never been used.

The pair is a classic derby boot style, with a very wide and high toe box. The leather is dark brown aniline dyed, likely from one of their own tanneries here in Sweden. You can see on the leather that it’s old, but still in good condition, and after I’ve conditioned them thoroughly and polished them up with some shoe cream, it looks and feel really nice. They are Goodyear welted, have leather soles with an open channel, stitching on the welt is also channeled and then roughly fudged. These are functional, solid quality footwear, but certainly not refined in any way.

As a Swede I adore the rubber heel piece branded “Elg”, which means moose in Swedish, and with a moose pictured. Lovely stuff. My intention is to attach a rubber topy on the sole (where I live in Sweden it’s not really suitable with leather soles on boots) and then have these as my boots for next year’s Stitchdown Patina Thunderdome. Really look forward to wearing them and seeing how the leather holds up and ages. Some might think it’s stupid to wear nice old, unused shoes like these, but to me footwear (apart from exhibition or contest pieces) are meant to be worn, it just happened to take 80 years for this pair to find the right owner.

The sole stitch is hidden in a channel on the welt, and then one have the quite coarse fudging.

On the shafts one can see clearer that leather is quite old.

As standard for a lot of footwear at the time, they had fabric lining. One of the things that is better on quality footwear today, that’s almost always leather lined.

High toe box.

The moose heel rubber top piece.

Oscaria logo.

Back with leather pull tab.

Asymmetric toe shape. All with this both is functional.

Shaft is pretty wide to make room for a thick gusseted tongue.