['No naturally shaped human foot would end in wedged-in, pointed toes" (Knud Ahlborn)--Wandervögel, youth movement and movement for rational footwear].

Abstract

The nineteenth century "movement for rational clothing" not only aimed at reforming women's clothes (leaving behind corset-fashion), it set out to improve women's rights in general. Few people know that footwear also was modernized in the second half of the nineteenth century. After shoes had been made for 350 years on the basis of a symmetry pattern, without or with almost invisible distinction between left and right feet, scientists around the Frankfurt born professor of anatomy Georg Hermann von Meyer (1815-1892) demanded with him radical reform of footwear--for both sexes--using new lasts that were modelled on the natural shape of feet. Around the turn of the century, after physicians, shoemakers and hygienists had spent decades debating new ideas, members of the Wandervogel movement adopted the issue for their own purposes and chose anatomic over fashionable yet unhealthy fits which tended to be pointed, slim and--above all--symmetrical. Once the Wandervogel movement had split into several smaller groupings in 1904 and become part of the Jugendbewegung (youth movement), some of its members wanted clothing to also carry symbolic meaning. Naturally-shaped hygienic boots should no longer just allow for walking without damage to the feet: they should become the embodiment of a new spirit and, beyond that, of a reformed society. A new "lay practice" and "do-it-yourself"-shoemaking replaced former academic programs for new natural footwear. Interestingly enough, alongside those quite radical concepts, a kind of "footwear reform light" established itself in the market: on the surface only slightly different from the old-fashioned, symmetrical shoes, these "modern" pairs, which consisted of a right and left shoe, remained successful even after the world wars and became the new standard in the twentieth century, because the shoes made according to this pattern lasted longer, fitted better and were more comfortable.