The Boot and Shoe Trades in London and Paris in the Long Eighteenth Century

Producers, if not active in creating product innovation, they had at least to be
responsive to new consumers' preferences. This was a necessary, but not
sufficient condition. For instance, when a completely new type of female shoe
arrived from France at the beginning of the nineteenth century, British producers
copied and anglicised the product. However they were unable to produce it as
cheap as the French version that was made of two instead of three upper parts
(see chapter 6).b05
3.4.1 Substitution and innovation: boots
Product innovation can also mean the reinterpretation of already existing
products to suit new uses. Boots were considered, for most of the eighteenth
century, suitable for riding only. The Swedish Pehr Kaim during his travel in
Britain in 1748 reported a very detailed picture of cultural attitudes towards
footwear at the middle of the eighteenth century:
I never noticed that any Englishman used boots in any case, except when he was
riding and sitting on a horse. On other occasions shoes were used. Sometimes,
when any snow fell in winter, so that it was dirty in the streets, there was here and
there an individual who wore boots. If anyone in any case walked in the town in
boots, he had always a riding-whip in his hand as a sign that he had ridden in or
was just about to mount and ride out of the town. If he did not do this, he was
looked upon as a foreigner, at whom the people could stand and stare, as at
something extraordinary. I remember that, during my visit to the country in dirty
and rainy weather, when I had pulled on my boots, to go drier about the feet, I
was asked by one and another if I intended to ride out to any place that day in
such bad weather.'°6
A similar situation was described by another foreign traveller, César de
Saussure. He noted how only farmers in London were wearing boots "as they
105 Information from Mrs June Swann. My analysis of the Northampton Boot and Shoe
Museum collection and the shoe collection at the Department of Textiles and Costume of the
Royal Ontario Museum suggests that from 1825 the use of the two-upper parts process became
common in London.
'°6 J. Luca, ed., Kaim's account of his visit to England, cit., p. 53.
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