16th Century Italian Red Leather Shoes, or Scarpini

Most of the information for shoe construction I got from a class I took at Caid Collegium in 2012. The instructor got much of his information from Stepping Through Time, which is sadly out of print and not very affordable right now. I'll hopefully be able to add it to my library one of these days!

Before these shoes were begun, the fist step is to make a last, or mold of your foot. In period, these were mostly carved from wood. However, having no wood carving skills, I decided to use the easier and quicker method of a plaster cast of my foot.

I covered my feet in petroleum jelly (one at a time - it would have been too difficult to do both at once!) and wrapped them with plaster bandages. After 20-30 minutes, the plaster dries enough that you can cut a slit in the back and work your foot out (very carefully! I ended up with some scratches on my ankle from the scissors). The cut is taped shut with duct tape, and the mold is allowed to dry completely.



Once the mold is dry, coat the inside with petroleum jelly, mix up some Plaster of Paris according to the directions on the package, and pour it in. I let mine dry for a couple of days just to make sure. Then you can remove the plaster bandages, and file down any remaining odd bits. Then you have plaster replicas of your feet! They're kind of odd.



You need to make some small changes to these plaster casts before you can use it as a shoe mold. First, you need to build out the toe area - shoes that fit too closely at the toes are not comfortable. A class I took suggested Bondo, which is an automotive filler. I also cut out and attached a piece of thin plywood in the shape of my footprint to the bottom of the cast, to make the bottom of the shoe flat. Sadly, I didn't get a picture of the finished shoe lasts.


Now for shoemaking!

The top of the shoe was patterned, using a set of falling apart Toms that I had laying around, then cut from the leather. The toe and heel pieces were stitched together with a butt stitch. This leather was then soaked in water for half an hour and stretched over the last, and laced in place across the bottom of the last, and allowed to dry. In period, they would have nailed the shoe to the last, but of course plaster doesn't take nails as well as wood, so I laced them.



Once dry, the leather was slashed and tooled to create a decorative pattern. It's a simple pattern, but is based loosely on the Detail from The Arrival of Leo X in Florence, 1559-60, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, and an extant Florentine overshoe. The pattern was cut with a utility knife, and the line was put in with a leather stamp and mallet.



The leather was then dyed red. I chose red to match my Eleonora dress. Moda a Firenzie states that Eleonora's shoes and overshoes often matched her gowns, and that she had many pair in red. I ended up taking out the stitching attaching the two pieces before dying, then re-stitching it. I wasn't sure at what stage the leather should have been dyed. I thought it was dyed before soaking, it might create a mess. Leather is so easy to dye. You pretty much just paint the dye on with a paintbrush, let it dry for an hour or so, and buff it with a cloth. I also put a conditioner over the top to seal it after the dye was dry. So easy!



And here they are stitched back together again.



I decided to make these shoes using the welted construction method, since I had learned that method in a class. I probably should have used a different one, as it made them very wide, and they didn't fit into the overshoes later. But we live and learn. And so, the top of the shoe was stitched to the insole and the welt strip with waxed linen thread. The stitch goes through the edge of the insole, through the top of the shoe, and out through the welt strip, in a sort of double running stitch. This is the part that is time consuming, and will hurt your hands.



The welt strip was then moistened to help it lay flat. It was stitched to the outsole, a slightly thicker piece of leather. The thought process here is that when the leather starts to wear out, you can cut these stitches and stitch on a new outsole, while the rest of the shoe is still good. The excess material on the welt and outsole are then trimmed down.



Here are the finished shoes!



The next post will cover construction of the overshoes.