as styles evolve, no need to camouflage chunky feet

Above This is strange. It’s a news article from the Boston Sunday Globe, dated July 2, 1939, page 2 (only weeks before the outbreak in Europe of World War II). It’s a discussion of women’s shoe styles in relation to foot size. It claims, in essence, that women are no longer insistent on having small-sized, “dainty” feet. In buying shoes, they are choosing comfort over pain. But then, by means of a curious seque, the author credits this change of attitude to the use of ship camouflage in WWI. Here is the reasoning—

Women have never had an active desire to have dainty feet. Twenty years ago, however, they felt that large feet made them conspicuous; in those days the cartoonists frequently used to jeer at them, call them gunboats and similar names. So dainty feet became the style. Now shoe stores keep sizes 10 and 11 on hand for women who are not ashamed to ask for them.

Shoe manufacturers have contributed more than their bit to this change in point of view. The styles of the last decade have provided for what used to be called gunboats much the same sort of camouflage that the navy paints on battleships in wartime. Color combinations make the large shoe less conspicuous. The sandal type of shoe, with the toe and heel cut out, aimed to make the foot look smaller.