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I had very exciting new boots when we recorded this! I still have them, in fact. They are surprisingly comfortable. But my boots are only a tiny piece of excitement of our excitement about shoes. Plus, someone asked us to talk about shoes, so we decided to do that.

Here’s what we talked about:

• How to dress myself
• Shoe Crazy-adjacent, which is like Nerd-Adjacent
• Holly’s shoes and my shoes
• Mary Janes
• Women like shoes more than men do. SHOCKING.
• Some men have erotic thoughts about shoes. ALSO SHOCKING.
• Shoes have been around for a very long time, particularly sandals. Moccasins and boots are also very old.
• Shoes and status and theater
• Red heels and red soles
• “Kinky Boots” and the red shoe monologue
• Glass slippers
• Terrible Disney running shoes
• Cinderella and terrible ways to fit into shoes
• Making shoes
• Failed business models for custom shoes and how that eventually became NikeID
• When the economy tanks, people still buy shoes.
• The Lipstick Indicator
• Shoes as a leveler in fashion, unless you have big feet
• The “King of the Hill” episode “The Order of the Straight Arrow”
• Bad shoe stigma
• Space shoes and other shoe anecdotes
• The pain-beauty connection in footwear
• “Born to Run”
• Foot binding
• Listener mail! From Ginny about Holly’s guest spot on Stuff You Missed in History Class, and a big ol’ correction about whether people ever proposed by mail
• How Jelly Shoes Worked
• Episode link: If the Shoe Fits

My research:

• Belk, Russell Belk. “Shoes and Self.” Advances in Consumer Research. 2003.
• Bergstein, Rachelle, “From the Ankle Down: The Story of Shoes and How They Define Us.” Harper. 2012.
• O’Malley, Michelle. “A Pair of Little Gilded Shoes: Commission, Cost, and Meaning in Renaissance Footwear.” Renaissance Quarterly. Vol. 63, 2012.
• Smith, E.O. “High Heels and Evolution: Natural selection, sexual selection and high heels.” Psychology, Evolution & Gender. December 1999.
• Webster, Elaine. “Red Shoes: Linking Fashion and Myth.” Textile. Vol. 7, Issue 2, 2009.

Holly’s research:

• Dangerous Elegance: A History of High-Heeled Shoes
• A Not-So-Guilty Pleasure
• Louboutin Wins Appeal Over Saint Laurent Red-Soles Shoes
• Every Shoe Tells a Story
• Feet and Shoes across cultures
• High Heels and Pumps Now, Foot Pain Later
• Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet

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