16th Century Italian Overshoes, or Pianelle

These where intended to be the Florentine version of the more well-known Venetian chopines. They were made in red, to match my red Eleonora of Toledo gown and red leather shoes.

The Florentines also wore raised overshoes, but they were generally of a more modest height than those seen in Venice and other neighboring Italian city states. While there are reports extant Venetian examples that can reach a foot high, the average Florentine examples “of a fashionable height” were probably no more than 4-5 inches. According to Bulgarella, in The Cultural World of Eleonora of Toledo, the gown Eleonora of Toledo was buried in was intended to be worn with raised platform shoes about 12 cm, or about 4.7 inches tall. This seems similar to other Florentine examples found in Moda a Firenzie.

In Florence, high overshoes were a sign of rank, while lower class people generally wore lower, or even flat overshoes. These overshoes were often worn with matching leather scarpini, or flat shoes.

While the Venetian raised heels often used a cork core, the Florentine examples used a wooden wedge. They were usually covered in fabric, especially velvet. Eleonora of Toledo’s wardrobe accounts record that she had 32 pair in red, and another 31 pair in various other colors, accordinging to Moda (seriously, if you don't have this book, and you are at all interested in 16th century Florentine clothing, you need to get it).

My original plan was to make overshoes to go with my red leather shoes. Sadly, due to some poor planning , the leather shoes are too wide and don't fit inside the overshoes, so I can't wear them together. I think I shall, at some point, make new, thinner shoes to go with these.

I chose to make my overshoes out of wood, like the surviving Florentine examples. I originally tried to find poplar, but couldn't find any poplar blocks in the right size. I did find basswood blocks, sold for wood turning, about 4 inches square on the end, and just long enough for my foot. So the finished overshoes are just under 4 inches high at the heel. Which is slightly shorter than the extant examples, but plenty tall enough for my 5'6" height.

Most of the how-to information I got for this project comes from this excellent website, by Francis Classe. I really can't say enough about it.

I started with two blocks of basswood. These were cut roughly into shape using a band saw (my co-worker Dave graciously let me use his power tools and supervised to make sure I didn't lose any digits!). We then got out a couple of different types of belt sanders and sanded out the middle until they looked pretty, and were mostly even. Here's what the wooden wedges ended up looking like.



The wooden wedge is covered by several pieces: the insole (between the top of the overshoe and the foot) the outsole (between the overshoe and the ground), the surround (the velvet that covers the sides of the overshoe), and the vamp(the part that holds the shoe to the foot).

First, we make the insole. It was cut from a medium-weight piece of leather, and is just barely smaller than the outline of the top of the wooden base. I tooled the insoles with a crescent-shaped leather stamping tool and a hammer, and went ahead and made the stitching holes with a leather awl.



The insoles were then dyed red. Don't forget to dye the edges of the leather! These will show on the finished overshoe. Again, I love dying leather! You just paint it on with a brush, wait, then buff it off. I finished with a leather sealer.



Next, I patterned and stitched together the red velvet surround for the overshoe. I pretty much just draped the peices, then stitched them together by hand, leaving one of the back seams open.

The vamp was also patterned. I was cut from the same medium weight leather as the insole. It was then covered in the red velvet, and lined with red silk.

The next part is time consuming, and finicky. You need to make a sandwich with the insole, the vamp, then the surround, and stitch through all three layers, all the way around the insole. When stitching through the vamp, I was careful to catch the leather with each stitch, as well as the fabric covering.



Once everything was stitched, I trimmed down some of the excess fabric on what would shortly be the inside of the shoe.

Next, the insole is glued to the top of the overshoe wedge. I roughed up the top surface with sandpaper, and applied a generous coat of shoe glue, lined everything up, and held it in place until the glue felt stable.



Then, you can turn everything right-side out and it looks almost like an overshoe!



I didn't get as many pictures of the next few steps.

I glued the velvet surround to the sides of the overshoe with spray adhesive, and stiched together the last open seam of the surround.

Once that was dry, I was ready to attach the outsole. The outsole was patterned and cut from the thickest leather I could find, again, just barely smaller than the wooden base of the wedge. I marked a spot about 3/8 of an inch from the edge of the leather and cut a groove all the way around the outsole. I tacked the outsole to the base of the overshoe with two short nails.

I then took a drill and drilled a hole from the groove, through the leather and wood, and out the side of the wedge. These are the stitching holes. I used two pieces of fishing line to guide regular linen leather thread through these holes, stitching the outsole to the bottom of the overshoe. There's lots of tiny holes to drill. I broke three drill bits and cut my hands up a bit from the fishing line on this part of the project. This leaves you with a line of (in my case, slightly uneven) white stitching along the outside of the red velvet on the overshoe. I covered these stitches up with a piece of gold trim.

Here's how they turned out:



Next up, pictures from Gulf Wars!