Shoes and Fairytales 2

More things about shoes.  The oldest recorded version of Cinderella comes from China.  Many of these tales originated in the East and travelled down the Silk Road (along with the Black Death).  Small feet were seen as a sign of refinement and beauty in China - apparently there was a concubine with tiny feet in the Han Dynasty,  who started the fashion which lead to the horrendous custom of binding women's feet.  Cinderella had small, elegant feet compared to her stepsisters, who cut off their toes in some versions to  squash their feet into her glass slipper.  Messy - and visible.  So here are some pictures of the incredibly tiny shoes (about 4" or 10 cm) and the effect binding had on a woman's foot.

Apparently women could still walk and work the fields with bound feet (it was a practice that was taken up by rich and poor alike) but it was difficult to balance on the soles of the tiny shoes, and women developed a swaying gait called the Lotus Gait that was thought to be alluring.  Manchu women were forbidden to bind their feet by order of the Emperor, but a fashion for 'Flower bowl' shoes developed, which effectively made them walk with tiny steps in the same swaying manner.  I have seen examples of these shoes before in the V&A and wondered about them, so this research has filled that gap.