130 Boots: Inclusivity

Transcription

1 When the war ended in 1945, Europe turned to the task of rebuilding, and Americans once again looked west for inspiration. The swagger of the cowboy fitted the victorious mood of the country. Dude ranches were now a destination for even the middle class. Hopalong Cassidy and the puppet cowboy Howdy Doody kept children glued to their televisions, and Nashville s country music industry produced one rhinestone cowboy after another. Westerns were also one of the most popular film genres. As the movie director Dore Schary noted, the American movie screen was dominated by strong, rugged males the one punch, one [gun] shot variety. 43 In this milieu, cowboy boots became increasingly glamorous. Exaggeratedly pointed toes, high-keyed coloured leathers, elaborate appliqué and even actual rhinestone embellishments were not considered excessive. This period has been called the golden age of cowboy boots, and the artistry and imagination expressed in late 1940s and 1950s boot-making is staggering. The cowboy boot was becoming part of costume, a means of dressing up, of playing type. This point was made clear by the popularity of dress-up cowboy clothes, including boots, for children. Indeed, this transformation into costume was becoming the fate of many boots in fashion. Although most boot styles fell out of fashion in the 1950s, in the immediate post-war period a particular form of military footwear did pass into men s stylish casual dress: the chukka boot, said to have come from India, and its variant, the desert boot. Designed as a low ankle boot with a two to three eyelet closure, chukkas were said to have been worn for comfort by British polo players both on and off the field in India. 44 The simple desert boot was based on the traditional chukka but in Cairo during the war it was given a crepe sole and soft suede upper. Nathan Clark of the British shoe-manufacturing Clark family translated the desert boot for civilian use. Both the desert boot and the chukka had become accessories of casual male elegance by the 1950s, being particularly popular with young men. For some men, however, relaxation was not to be had lounging in khakis and shod in desert boots; instead they sought to embrace the freedoms for which they had so recently fought and the close male 130 Boots: Inclusivity

2 The high-heeled cowboy symbolized unfettered freedoms and self-reliance in the 20th century. This pair of Tony Lama boots reflects the fashion for finery, from the use of lizard skin at the toe to the high stacked leather heel. American, mid-20th century.

3 The engineer s boot became popular with bikers after the Second World War. The biker offered an updated version of the cowboy, and his sartorial codes likewise spoke to unfettered freedom. American, mid-20th century.

4 camaraderie that they had experienced. Groups of ex-military men began to gather together, drawn by their love of motorcycles, and by the late 1940s biker clubs were being established throughout the United States. 45 Often described as mid-century cowboys, American bikers took to the open road astride their motorized mounts wearing a new type of riding boot, the engineer boot. The first engineer boots were created by the American shoe manufacturer Chippewa. The company had established itself in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, making rugged boots for loggers at the turn of the century. By 1937 they had begun to make engineer boots for land surveyors based on the English riding boot, designed to present a neat, professional appearance in the field. 46 These rugged yet elegant boots featured adjustable straps at the knee and across the instep and were soon adopted by other professions. The introduction of the mid-calf-high shaft in 1940 only increased their popularity and they became the footwear of choice for dock workers during the war years. Bikers began to wear engineer boots immediately following the war. When paired with denim and worn with leather jackets, engineer boots became a central accessory to the outlaw biker look cultivated by members of biker clubs ousted from the American Motorcycle Association. The Hollister riot of 1947 seared this image into the American imagination. The riot occurred when bikers from across the United States descended on the small California town of Hollister on Independence Day Hollister had hosted gypsy motorcycle races since the 1930s but the Second World War had put an end to them, until 1947, when an attempt was made to reestablish the tradition. Biker culture had dramatically grown in popularity and Hollister was unprepared for the large numbers that arrived in the town. Drunken and disorderly conduct defined the event, but in reality little damage was actually done. Sensationalized news coverage of the event captured America s attention. A staged photo of a boozing and booted biker published in Life magazine s 21 July issue helped to convey the idea that bikers were outlaws and rebels. The movie The Wild One (1953), inspired by the event and Boots: Inclusivity 133

5 starring Marlon Brando, disseminated this image of the malcontent biker to an even wider audience. The look was further glamorized by James Dean in 1955 when he starred in Rebel Without a Cause, and soon the impression of motorcycle boots commingled with ideas of youth alienation and social degeneracy. The extremely macho and homosocial nature of American biker culture also offered an appealing model of masculinity that spoke to many gay men. Rejecting the stereotype of effete male homosexuals, leathermen began to form their own biker clubs in the 1950s wearing leather outfits fetishized versions of biker clothing or military attire from head to toe. The artist Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, captured this in the men s erotica that he started producing in the late 1950s. Leatherman groups, like other biker groups, were drawn to the often militaristic order of clubs. Some included bdsm erotic elements such as bootblacking, in which boots played an important role: the relationship between bootblacks and boot-wearing customers had faded from daily life by the middle of the twentieth century, but the power dynamics inherent in the service were eroticized and moved underground, becoming an important part of leatherman culture. The romance surrounding American biker culture was also central to the development of the British motorcycle gangs known as rockers, who likewise rode large motorcycles and wore leather jackets and engineer boots. Their rivals were the mods, who preferred pristine scooters and dressed in more Continental fashion, with the exception of their footwear. They favoured the very English desert boot as well as the more refined Chelsea boot. The rockers and the mods shared similar working-class backgrounds and engaged in similar hooligan behaviour, but their sartorial differences were pronounced, the clothing of each group being worn like uniforms. In summer 1964 the two groups clashed at a number of British seaside towns and a moral panic ensued across the uk. 47 As the 1960s progressed the leather-boy attire of the rockers ossified. The suit-wearing mods fractured into two main groups: those who were mainly interested in fashion, and the so-called hard mods who began to sport 134 Boots: Inclusivity

6 shaved heads and wore lace-up work boots, eventually leading to skinhead culture. In men s fashion, mod style became very influential as the 1960s progressed: The new Mod look for men which could become the hottest thing that ever happened to men s wear fashion, is a controversial subject among the cognoscenti... typical of the Mod look Tom Jones ruffled shirts, corduroy jeans, high-heeled Chelsea boots and similar styles are causing much comment. 48 The English rock band the Beatles, who took the world by storm, are often credited with disseminating the fashion for mod-inspired suits and Beatle boots. These updated congress or Chelsea boots often featured higher heels, in emulation of the Beatles member The presence of gleaming boots was often central to the charged eroticism of Tom of Finland s artworks. Tom of Finland, #82.08, Boots: Inclusivity 135

7 John Lennon had this typical Chelsea boot altered. The heel was replaced with a higher, wooden heel of the kind worn by male flamenco dancers. British, early 1960s.

8 John Lennon, who had his customized with higher wooden heels taken from men s flamenco footwear. The mod look was part of the larger peacock revolution, which argued that males of other species, from peacocks to lions, were the more adorned of the sexes and which looked to fashion from the past for inspiration, including the ankle boot for men. At the beginning of the 1960s fashion was a feminine gender. By the end of the decade, the male had taken over the world of clothes the dreariness of his postwar clothing disappeared... all in a flamboyant rebellion against the Wall Street Uniform. 49 Clothing was at the centre of the ensuing battle of the sexes. An article on Britain s new booted age wrote that men and women all over... are vying with each other in a semi-sexual competition to prove who wears the boots best. 50 The article explained that The men, of course, claim that they ve always worn boots and their stylish, calf-length, elastic-sided boots with three inch Cuban heels are merely a development from their days in the army or riding the range. But, Rigged out in this fab gear... British girls began to emerge from their mouseholes and reveal themselves as pert, poised and brazen creatures ready to battle with any man... All they lack, as they strut the streets of Chelsea, is a sword and buckler. In their eyes is a cocksure glare, a challenge to every man to prove he s not a heel... At first this jackbooted apparition over-awed the male. It still startles newcomers. 51 Indeed, boots were in fashion for women and were part of growing discontent with the status quo. Women wanted a brighter future, and this was reflected in the decidedly forward-looking boots which stood in contrast to the nostalgia popular in women s fashions. These space-age boots also stood in stark contrast to the nostalgia for boot styles of the past that defined men s boot choices. English designers from John Bates to Mary Quant, and French designers such as André Courrèges and Yves Saint Laurent, created boots inspired by space-age fantasies. In her minimalist white leather go-go Boots: Inclusivity 137

9 boots, the Courrèges woman was described in Vogue in 1964 as being as modern as the year after next... she lives in the present and a little beyond it. 52 Vogue also declared the new boots appropriate for heroines. 53 They were certainly a feature in the costuming of Jane Fonda as Barbarella in the 1968 film. Likewise, boots were central to the costuming of Dr Cathy Gale and Emma Peel, the female protagonists in the British spy-fi television show The Avengers. Their skin-tight outfits and boots carried strong fetish overtones that were rivalled only by the outfits worn by the villainous Cat Woman on the American television show Batman. Even Chief Communications Officer Nyota Uhura wore knee-high boots with her miniskirt uniform in Star Trek s tv debut in The men on the show were also booted. Captain Kirk periodically wore knee-high officer boots, while the other men wore mod ankle boots with cropped trousers. It was clear that Space: the final frontier would be conquered in boots. As it happened, the actual boots worn on the lunar missions, starting with Apollo 11 in 1969, would go on to inspire a terrestrial fashion for moon boots in the 1970s one of the few times that winter boots would become a notable part of fashion. Fetish-inspired thigh-high boots, such as those sported in Barbarella, also entered mainstream fashion. The American shoe designer Beth Levine, in addition to making the boots worn in publicity shots by Nancy Sinatra for her hit single These Boots Were Made for Walking, created the first thigh-high leg-hugging stocking boots fabricated with Lycra. The famed French shoe designer Roger Vivier also turned to making boots in the 1960s. The thighhigh boots he designed for Yves Saint Laurent were made famous by Brigitte Bardot when she wore them astride a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. They may have been reminiscent of seventeenth-century riding boots, but they also suggested dominatrix boots. The connections between boots and domination became central to subculture dress in the 1960s and it was in this milieu that Dr Martens, or dms, became the footwear of rebellion and disaffection. Dr Martens were invented by the Second World War German 138 Boots: Inclusivity

10 In 1964, André Courrèges introduced white boots, including this pair, as part of his Space Age collection, sparking a trend for go-go boots that helped define the 1960s fashion look. French, 1964.

11 Army physician Klaus Märtens after he injured his ankle skiing. Basing his design on the army boots given to German soldiers at the end of the war, Märtens, with the assistance of Dr Hebert Funck, created rubber soles comprised of two separate pieces with hollow compartments that when heat-sealed together formed air pockets, bringing increased cushioning to the feet. Although these boots did well with German housewives in the 1950s, they did not have broad appeal until a contract was signed with the British shoe manufacturer R. Griggs in Griggs had been looking for an innovation that would give their company an edge over the competition s work boot and the air sole, eventually dubbed AirWair by the Griggs company, proved interesting. On 1 April 1960 the first eight-eyelet Dr Martens boot was made, named the 1460 after the date of its manufacture. It was immediately embraced by postal workers, factory workers and policemen, but it was only after the hard mods and then the skinheads added dms to their arsenal of steel-toed work boots that they became the symbols of defiance often associated with violence. The American photographer and former skinhead Gavin Watson recalls, we cut off the leather at the front to reveal the steel caps those boots were seen as weaponry and you felt safe wearing them. 54 In the late 1960s, hard mods and skinheads were part of a larger climate of social unrest that found expression in a multitude of subcultures, each with its own uniform: He doesn t mind the word skinhead at all, or the slightly menacing overtone that it has for many Britons... In a city swarming with long-haired young men wrapped in passivity, the sight of skinheads in brutally short hair-cuts and big boots often startles passers-by. 55 Skinheads used their booted fashions to distinguish themselves from hippies, whom they saw as effeminate, and they proclaimed their hypermasculinity through branded working men s dress. The skinhead costume was also very nationalistic, constructed from local 140 Boots: Inclusivity

12 The classic British Dr Martens 1460 is named after the date of its inception, 1 April The British shoe manufacturer R. Griggs & Co. had acquired the exclusive rights to the Dr Martens sole and the resulting work boot went on to become a counter-culture classic. British, 1995.

13 142 Sandals: Eccentricity

14 components. Dr Martens were seen as expressly English, a point that linked them to nationalist sentiments. Hippies, in contrast, were very global in their attire; worn while protesting against war, hippies Native American moccasins and Jesus sandals said citizen of the world. Skinheads reportedly christened new pairs of dms by kicking someone with them. It didn t matter who, and if you got some blood on them that was even better. 56 This connection between costume and political view was taken to an extreme by a small subset of skinheads who became increasingly xenophobic and embracing of neo-nazi ideology. Their affiliation with Dr Martens risked tainting the brand. Nonetheless, the brand s wider reputation as reliable work boots and their rugged authenticity tempered such associations and allowed them to have a wider currency as the century progressed. In the 1970s another type of boot, the high-heeled, platform-soled boot, also came to be used by men to proclaim their masculinity. The heel had been rising in men s footwear during the 1960s, as the heeled Beatle boot attested, but in the early 1970s heels for men reached unprecedented heights. On the street most men interested in this new fashion wore heeled shoes, but larger-than-life rock stars strode across the stage in knee-high boots sporting thick platforms and exaggeratedly high heels. David Bowie, perhaps the most truly gender-bending star of the glam rock scene, wore high platforms as well as make-up, but even as his sexuality was called into question he was adored, and understood to be adored in the popular media. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) further illustrates this sexual dynamic. The character Dr Frank N. Furter, played by Tim Curry, is dressed in a costume of corset, ripped fishnets and high-heeled laceup fetish boots, which burlesqued rather than adopted notions of traditional feminine clothing; the character s bisexuality did nothing to diminish his dominant and domineering masculine presence in the film. Indeed, the majority of glam rock performers did not have their sexuality or gender called into question as their acts established them as both hypersexual and masculine, despite their flamboyant Skinheads continue to wear Dr Martens as part of their uniform of discontent. This photograph by Mark Henderson was taken in Dublin in Boots: Inclusivity 143

15 The Toronto shoemaker Master John made this men s platform-sole boot complete with five-and-a-half-inch high heels, appliquéd stars and veritable landscape in leather. In the 1970s, some men followed the lead of rock stars in adopting lavish personal adornment including knee-high boots. Canadian, 1973.