Shoes!

Beautiful people, please, I need your help with ball shoes!

Setting: February 11th, 1888, Tokyo. My character, a 15-year-old girl, is going to a high-end ball. She has a carriage from door to door, so I don't think she is expected to be walking on snow.

The question is: What kind of shoes would she have? Some sources tell me that they would be flat shoes made of satin or silk, possibly white. In other sources I found the info that for dancing, ladies wore ankle-high (or higher) leather boots, black or brown, which had to be fastened/unfastened with hooks.

Now a bit of background information is that the character is not a girl, is not used to wearing European shoes (had some practice, but not much), and generally is scared to death of the situation he's in. The situation gets worse during the night; he has to make himself scarce, meaning that he must go outside and run like hell through mud and snow. Because of this, I need to know precisely the type of shoes to decide in what shape he'll be when the next thing happens. If he's wearing satin shoes, he'll kick them off, because they're useless; if he's wearing boots, well, it's going to be complicated... or he's going to sprain his ankle. I'd prefer to give him boots, but I'm not sure if I can.
Please help the orc

Marissa D said:

Dancing slippers of satin or kid, quite possibly dyed to match "her" dress, possibly tied on in a fashion similar to ballet slippers (at least they were earlier in the century--I can't say for sure in 1888.) Boots were not worn dancing, by either men or women.

ETA: However, because dancing slippers were so flimsy, young ladies attending balls usually carried a couple of pairs of them in a shoe bag to the ball and changed into them once they arrived (and brought more than one pair in case the first pair wore out.) So you can probably get away with your character wearing whatever kind of footwear you prefer, though buttoned boots aren't quickly changed in or out of.

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Oh, awesome! Thank you! I like the detail about slippers being dyed to match the dress – very interesting.

CWatts said:

ETA: I assume these would be worn with opaque stockings (closer to modern tights)? Looks like those would be silk or Lisle, though I've seen mention of "net" - thinking those would be more like lace than fishnets in that era though.

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Ha! I would like to know that, too. Right now I'm assuming that the shoes would be worn with white silk stockings, but I might be wrong. I remember impressionist paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec where the women wore black stockings, but white is probably more plausible for pastel-colored ball gown & shoes.

I'm also curious whether the dye from the shoes could run in the snow...?

Siri Kirpal said:

Natural dyes usually run less than aniline, which was available in that era.

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Thank you, Siri! Very helpful.

Ooh, those are great. Thank you so much!

I think I'll use simple white stockings made of silk, to go with an emerald green or mauve dress and shoes. I'm wondering how durable they were, since the character is looking at 2-3 days of walking and/or running without shoes on mud, snow, stones, gravel and whatnot...

Amazing, thank you!