FACTORALY - E17 SHOES

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

This week, it's footwear. We find out how clogs messed up machinery and learn to tell our right foot from our left. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

hello simon hello bruce hello listeners welcome to factorily how are you all oh yes we can't no they can hear us yeah but we can't hear them can't hear this is not the kind of thing where they have a talkback button where they can actually go yeah thanks guys we're fine yes no we're not at work we don't have we don't have a man on the other side of the screen asking us to do another take it's just us can you can you just can you just emphasize orally a bit more? Yes. Emphasize the fact rather than the orally. And is it orally or orally? Oh, well, this is an ongoing debate, isn't it?

I'm so glad that we have the sort of listenership who will recognize the difference between orally and orally without having to explain that. Yes. Well done, everyone. Well done. Thank you very much. So we often tackle the small subjects and we often tackle the big subjects. Yeah.

I think we thought this was going to be a small subject. Yes. And it turned out to be a big one. I thought this was going to be sort of a size five. It's turned out to be a size 13 and a half. There's a lot of material here. It lasts and lasts and lasts. So what are we talking about on this week's episode

Bruce? Shoes. Right, okay. So the etymology of the word shoe. The English word shoe comes from the German word shoe, which comes from the Dutch word shoe, which comes from the old English word shoe, which means

a shoe. One of the dullest etymologies ever. Do you know what the German for glove is? No. Handschuhe. Handschuhe. A shoe on your hand. Yes.

Brilliant. Love that. Shall we go back a bit in time? Go on then. We've known that people have worn shoes for about 6,000 years. That's quite a while. They've probably worn them before that as well, but we're certain. then we've known that people have worn shoes for about 6 000 years that's quite a while uh they've

probably have wore them before that as well but we're certain um we found we found a pair of flip flops basically you personally went with a pair of flip-flops which i which i will now call thong sandals because that's technically what they are is that right yes and they were made from all sorts of things made from uh leaves uh animal skins, bark, just lots and lots and lots of different things that you could make footwear out of, basically to stop your feet from getting hurt by whatever was underneath your feet. Yes, whether that was rocks or animals that bite or spiky plants, whatever. Yes. I mean, you know, it's a bit sketchy because, frankly, they're all made of stuff that degrades and decays and decays and vanishes from from yeah from sight yeah and then you get into like the medieval type of shoe you know you look at blackadder and you sort of see

the you know shoes that there were some shoes up to like four feet long i mean that's in medieval terms that's almost a whole person i know and but But what they did was they curled the toe up. Ah, yes. So it was only four feet long when fully extended. Right. So I'm sort of picturing a very comical jester-like curly-toed shoe. Yes, exactly. Then we can talk about high heels.

So first high heels were around about 15th century. Really? How long ago was that? Well, Louis XIV decided that high heels were only for courtiers. And it was actually outlawed. Anybody who wasn't a courtier could be put in prison for wearing high heels. Oh, really? I think he was quite short.

So maybe basically like 15th, 16th century lifts. And, you know, shoes just sort of bobbled along nicely until sort of the 1800s when people decided what we should do is we should make a shoe for your left foot and make a shoe for your right foot because they're different. So hang on. I've just naively assumed that since the dawn of time, you had a different shaped shoe for each foot, but that didn't come along until when? So that didn't come along until the 19th century, the 1800s. Wow, that's surprising. Yeah.

So obviously the manufacturers realised that if one shoe wore out, what people were doing is they would just buy one more shoe or buy another pair of shoes and then wait until another one wore out and then they'd still have a pair left. Whereas if the right one wears out, you have to buy a whole new pair. It's a very good marketing ploy. Also, I think it must have felt better to have a right and a left. I mean, I suppose my slippers are sort of uni-foot, aren't they?

Uni-foot, yes, they are. Yeah, they can be a bit uni-foot, can't they? I suppose it depends on how snug and how tight they are. I mean, you sort of mentioned these thousands of year old shoes made of different materials. I saw a pair of shoes made of leather that were, yeah, about five or six thousand years old. And they did look quite individual in as much that they were handmade by the person who was going to wear them. So they hugged the shape of the foot and therefore they automatically looked left and right-ish. Well, there were a load of cobblers so so the the point of a cobbler was that um they

would they would cobble together your shoes for you and they would they would stitch them together from animal skins and sometimes they inverted them as well so okay you could either have the seam on the inside or the seam on the outside oh they were inside outable. Inside outable. So then we had left and right shoes and I think we'd never look back really. No, no, I can't imagine a type of shoe being produced now which wouldn't be left and right. There'd be an outcry. I did a little bit of research about Doc Martens. I've had a few pairs of Doc Martens over the years. I don't wear them anymore. That was a thing that happened to me in the 90s and then stopped.

But I've got quite an affection for Doc Martens. And I knew nothing about them. I had no idea where they were from or their origin story. Who was Martin? Was he a doctor? Yes, he was indeed. And in fact, he was Martins. Oh, he was Martins.

It's not that these are the shoes of Dr. Martin, therefore Dr. Martins with an apostrophe. These are the shoes of Dr. Martins. Oh, with an E as well, isn't it? Yeah, so it's M-A-R-T-E-N-S. And this gentleman was called Klaus Martins. He was a doctor in the German army. And during the Second World War,

he injured his ankle and he found the German military supply boots were uncomfortable for him. They weren't doing him any good. So he designed his own pair of boots where the ankle came up a bit higher to be more supportive. And he made the sole more cushiony he he used uh bike tires uh and inflated the soles so they were sort of actually filled with a cushiony layer of air and this helped his ankle um after the war he tried to market these to very very limited success they weren't terribly popular straight away but in 1947 he he paired up with a friend of his from luxembourg called herbert funk which is a wonderful name probably pronounced funk but i i like funk yeah he's got it he's got it he's definitely got it so we've got soul and funk in the same topic um so martins and funk um

created these boots uh and they initially they were very popular with housewives they were they were sturdy they were long lasting they were quite cheap um and you know they just did what what you needed them to do in the first year of production 80 percent of doc martin's sold were sold to to women oh yeah surprising um in 1959 so only well just over a decade later um there was a british shoe manufacturer called r griggs and they purchased the patent rights to produce to to make and produce dr martin's in the uk for the uk market they changed the design slightly they added the now iconic yellow stitching around the sole and they came up with the name airwear which is the the patent name for the cushioned soles yes and um and they went into production and in 1960

they produced the eight eyelet doc martin boot which has just become an absolute icon of british it is it is britain isn't it absolutely You know, thanks to things like, you know, Clockwork Orange, it's not exactly. Well, this is the thing. So these were produced in Britain in 1960. They've become an absolute staple of postmen, police officers, factory workers, because they're very hard wearing boots. I used to be a postman and Doc Martens were an absolute staple in Royal Mail. Up until Royal Mail decided that they couldn't afford you know luxury items like good shoes and thick jackets but that's aside so they became the absolute staple of the working class and that the skinheads completely jumped on

them and they became you know the iconic apparel of the skinhead and the punks jumped on them and so they became associated with sort of subculture and um you know being a little bit out of the mainstream and doc martin's these days come in all varieties of styles colors elaborate floral designs and and punky gothic designs they're um they're quite a work of art their head office is around the corner from me in camden in camden and there is one of the best shops in camden i mean they have they have a they have their proper They're quite a work of art. Their head office is around the corner from me. In Camden? In Camden. And there is one of the best shops in Camden. I mean, they have their proper offices over by the canal.

Yeah. And they have like this huge shop, which doesn't have any prices on any of the shoes in the window. Oh, doesn't it? No. If you have to ask, you can't afford it. I think that's the case but um yeah so thank you for allowing me a brief excursion from shoes into boots i think it was worthwhile it's good for your soul shoes have also been used as a as a as a rebellious statement so you were talking about um uh punks and and um the dot martins um and in fact well before that shoes were used as a sort of form of rebellion um there's there's sort of a clog

that workers wore uh in factories yes and they got very upset that there was a lot of work being done by machines that could actually be done by human beings. Sure. So machines were starting to do man's jobs. Yes. So what's the first thing you think of doing? You throw your shoe into the machine. Of course you do. Yeah, of course you do. And then when you throw your clog into the machine, or as they called them in France at the time, your sabot into the machine. Right. You became a saboteur.oteur no oh i just want to take a moment and absorb that wow that's very good the education you get on this show honestly i know it's wonderful i mean there have been other ways of of using shoes in a kind of like a rebellious way sort of i mean people throw them up onto wires these days. I've noticed that.

What's that about? Well, there was a rumor that it was about gang, especially in America, especially in Chicago, like delineating gang areas. Really? Like a signpost? Exactly. So this is our area. But that's not been proved. There was a thing that apparently troops returning from war, certainly after the Second World War and Vietnam, would take their boots, their army boots, and throw them onto what they called actually boot trees. So there would be like a whole load of army boots on a pylon or something just to make the point that I'm not ever going to wear these shoes again.

Yeah. Wow. So there's all sorts of ways of showing your displeasure with a shoe. Interesting. That carries on. So showing your displeasure with a shoe is something that people still do to this day. Is it? Like taking your flip-flop off and smacking your arch enemy across the face with it well flinging a flip-flop is uh is something that you could easily do if you're in arab country because

shoes are considered dirty because obviously get in touch with the ground yes so showing the sole of your shoe like if you sit cross-legged and show the sole of your shoe to your host yes that's incredibly rude oh i see and the worst thing you can possibly do is to throw your shoe not into the machine but at a person ah right and shoes i mean the most famous one was george w bush um had a shoe thrown at him and there's video of him very agilely ducking and weaving to avoid the shoe some some people weren't quite so lucky uh david beckham for example and lily allen have both had shoes thrown at them whilst whilst visiting whilst visiting our countries states yes how interesting yes but actually also i mean it's no longer valid but

there used to be a thing where if you took your shoe off as a woman that was basically a way of saying i divorce you oh really so so the shoes were kind of like i i own you because you're wearing my shoes and you go in that case here are your shoes back mate i'm off wow well that that paints the cinderella story in a very different light doesn't it i just want to go and have a little chat about clogs, since you brought clogs up. I've always found clogs strange. They look uncomfortable and unyielding and heavy. They're essentially a block of wood that's been carved into a shoe shape.

There's no give in them, there's no flex, and they make a heck of a noise when you're walking along in them, which is why you get clog dancing dancing for that very reason yes like tap dancing you you dance around with a big heavy wooden shoe and it makes a noise um and i've always pondered what is the point and it never really occurred to me that they were uh they were specifically for um agricultural workers working in damp soggy climates because they're they're entirely waterproof you know there's there's no stitching there's no seam they're not made of material that would get damp and soggy so if you're working out in a dutch field for example all day long i always

associate clogs with the netherlands um then the perfect shoe. They get muddy, but you just take them off and wipe them down and off you go again. So they're totally right for that setting. So clogs were, as you said about the Industrial Revolution, people throwing their clogs in the machinery. That was because clogs were the shoe of the worker at the time. Makes sense. Clogs had been around in the Netherlands, in ancient China, in Greece even, for forever. They came into this country around 1400, and almost instantly people started using them for dancing. I had no idea that clog dancing was such a big thing in this country.

Again, Netherlands, sure. But in the UK, Wales and particularly lancashire has a really really thriving clog dancing community which i had no idea about i think that's fascinating um but yeah so this this single block of wood turned into a shoe around 1500 they started making a variation of it which was in two parts so the heel and the toe were wooden with a leather bit in between to make them a bit more flexible and dancing with those shoes is where the dance term heel and toe comes from because the heel and the toe were the bits that made the noise

as you were dancing and there are professional clog dancing championships around the world i guess there's youtube videos of this stuff is oh you have no idea how many youtube videos i've watched on this bit of research bruce um it's more than one um and uh some people in in the professional clog dancing world they started adding little bits of iron to the heel and the toe so that as they were dancing they would shoot sparks across the stage and it would look flamboyant and impressive and that is what gave rise essentially to tap dancing because a tap shoe has a bit of metal on the heel and the toe yes um but all of that you know you think what a massive part of the entertainment world tap dancing is all of that

came along because of agricultural workers in the 1400s wearing wooden shoes that were waterproof isn't that great well i'm blowed so am i actually but there's been all sorts of uses of of shoes for dance i mean you know ballet shoes a perfect example of and actually ballet shoes are made on the inverse method so you so you stitch them up so that the stitching's on the outside generally they sort of turn them inside out, don't they? Partway through the procedure of making them, yeah. Yes. And they put a little piece of something hard in the toe so that you can go on point and things like that.

Yeah. But ballet shoes have been around for a long time. Have they? How long? So ballet shoes have been around since the 1680s. Huh. I mean, they generally had heels initially. Right, okay. But the first non-heeled ballet shoes

came out in about the 1850s. Right, okay. And that made it much easier to dance much more elegantly rather than having that high heel to deal with. Yeah, sure. I remember being at school in the 1980s, shows my age, and the battle between Reebok and Nike or Nike,

depending on how you're disposed, was absolutely raging. You were very firmly one or the other. And I remember Nike just having the edge and just being a bit cooler because they were American. And during the 80s, everything American was cool. Yeah. But Reebok have been around actually longer than Nike, haven't they? Much, much older.

Nike started in about early 70s, 71, something like that. And one of the first things that Nike did was they were looking for the perfect grippy sole. Yeah. And this guy saw his, I think it was his wife, cooking waffles and thought, that's an interesting shape. I wonder if we could make shoe soles from a waffle iron. So he basically got some rubber, poured it into the waffle iron, made sort of rubber waffles, and then cut it into a shoe sole shape. And that was the first really big selling Nike shoe was the waffle. That's fantastic. I looked at the style of women's shoes and I just got lost with it.

There was just so much. Too much. Way too much. Yeah. But looking at like men's formal shoes okay yes which which is a nice niche area yes um sort of they get oxfords and derbies and there's a very easy way to tell the difference between oxford and the derby and oxford has the laces going down to a v so it's like there's there's a v-shaped lace bit

and a derby has like two different strips of leather that you kind of bring together with the laces i see okay actually talking of laces do you know what the hard bit at the end of a lace is called oh um i used to but the more information i put in there the more falls out they. They're actually called aglets. Aglets? Aglets are the little hard bits on the end of laces that help you to thread your art. Isn't that charming that such a minuscule little piece of equipment has its own name?

Aglets. So on the end of your laces from your Oxfords or your Derbys and then there are brogues which have a little bit of stylised leather on them and Britain was very proud of its shoemaking which have a little bit of stylized leather on them. A bit of dimpling. And Britain was very proud of its shoemaking abilities. And the whole of Northampton was a shoe factory.

Really? A massive, massive shoe factory. All the shoes came from Northampton. Right. All of these really well-known British brands of posh men's shoe, like Church's and Green's and Crockett and James and Lobb, all been around since like the mid-19th century, sort of 1840s to 1860s, 1870s, all making bespoke shoes. which is dying now where you actually have your foot measured and then you have a wooden model of your foot made from the measurements okay and then they make the shoe around the wooden model of your that's called a last it's called what a last last ah and then they make the shoe around

the last and then that shoe fits your foot like a like an absolute slipper it's lovely wow you're gonna save like a glove for a second there won't you i'm going to i'm just going to throw a couple of world's biggest smallest etc because i like that sort of thing um okay most expensive shoe ever ever to date god what at auction or just to buy it buy it new uh it's it was made as a one-off there's only one pair of these in existence they were made bespokely for a person by a designer um these shoes cost wait for it 19.9 million dollars sorry that was me just hitting the desk um these are called uh these are called the moon star shoes and they were made by antonio vietri only a handful of years ago they're made of a mixture of solid gold 30 carat diamond and a bit of meteorite dust from a meteorite discovered in dubai back in 1576

and and they're a pair of ridiculously glamorous uh women's high heel shoes um 19.9 million dollars some people have too much money i i need to correct myself from a previous episode where we were talking about the predictions made in Back to the Future 2. And I said, I still don't have my power laces. Apparently, someone made power laces. In 2016, Nike actually made a pair of the shoes that are featured in Back to the Future 2. Oh, wow. Called the Nike Air Mag 2016.

And these have a very small motor and batteries in the sole and they automatically tie your laces as they did in the movie um 100 pairs of those were made uh and they are going in auction for about 26 000 a pair goodness so far less than the moon dust um didn't they try and make them for sort of people who who were disabled who couldn't actually tie their own shoelaces? Is that right? I believe so. That's a very good idea. Rather than just being a bit of pop culture, that's very good.

The biggest ever shoe, or pair of shoes. Was there a woman living in it? An old one who had lots of children. Yes. Not this particular pair. The biggest ever pair of shoes were a size 37 AA, and they belonged to Robert Wadlow. Was he a clown?

No. So Robert Wadlow was the tallest man who ever lived. Eight foot 11 inches tall. Wow. He lived from 1918 to 1940 very short life and i've stood next to a statue of him at the guinness book of records attraction in london which is sadly no longer there he was an absolute giant of a man and you're well you're quite tall as well so so i'm i'm about the same as you six three yeah um and my head came up to the bottom of his rib cage um so he had 37 double a shoes goodness me and by contrast the smallest ever pair of shoes um was made by a scientist

in switzerland in 2005 this pair of shoes measures 12 micrometers people People do this, don't they? Just because they can. To give that some context, a human hair is about 80 micrometers thick. So this pair of shoes is 12 micrometers long. You could always make loads of them, couldn't you? And then give them to a millipede. Yeah, sure. That's a good marketing strategy.

So like millipede gets up in the morning and it takes another three hours before it's able to go outside. Good. Well, that's it. That's it. I'm out. I've got nothing else. Me too. This has been an amazing and interesting and, well, you may not have found it interesting, but Simon and I found it really interesting. We think. We think

this has been an amazing and interesting and fascinating episode. If you either agree with us or disagree with us, please drop it in the comments and let us know your thoughts. Like, subscribe, all those things. Go and tell your friends about this wonderful show and we'll not see you because it's audio. You'll hear us.

You'll hear us again next time. So please come back soon. This has been Fact orally. I've been Simon Wells. And I haven time. So please come back soon. This has been Factorily. I've been Simon Wells. And I haven't. So there you go. Bye now. Bye-bye.