These were custom made for Princess Lilian of Belgium, designed by Roger Vivier, whom I gather from my visit to the Bata Shoe Museum, was the shoe to M. Dior’s dress. You notice that she’s my namesake.
But these, made for nobody with a crown, are more to my taste. They were sewn and decorated c. 1900 by women of the Caddo, Native Americans in Oklahoma.
That led me to read about the Caddo who lived along the Red and Mississippi Rivers in populous farming villages around the time of the Plague in Europe. Their contact with Europeans began in the 1540s, and we all know what came of that. But even after 350 years of depletion by disease and everything else that came with European settlement, their vitality persists; you can see it in those shoes, beautifully made for someone the maker cared about. Maybe this woman.
Photo of Caddo woman, 1906
Filed under: Interesting Tagged: Bata Shoe Museum, Caddo
