It can be formed, sewn, and made waterproof without losing its breathability. Today, although a variety of materials are used to make footwear, leather is still paramount, for a number of reasons. Throughout the centuries, leather has been the primary material for shoes, mainly because it was always available in sufficient quantities. As well as being more comfortable and better suited to the weather, modern footwear is specially designed for specific uses, including women's and men's shoes, slippers, sneakers, boots, hiking boots, sandals and much more. However, in more modern times shoe styles have been heavily influenced by fashion and used to display the status of the wearer. In the early days, the shape and appearance of a shoe was solely to protect the foot against injuries and the climate. Shoes are made from many different materials and in infinite colours and shapes. Roman legionary sandal 1st century AD (DLM - German Leather Museum in Offenbach).Ĭow's Mouth shoe 16th century (DLM - German Leather Museum in Offenbach). Made from plants they are 8,300 years old. The oldest actual footwear was a pair of sandals unearthed by archaeologists from the Arnold Research Cave in Missouri, USA.
The upper (outer shoe) was made of deerskin with hair side facing out as protection against moisture and the sole was made of bearskin with hair side facing inside, offering excellent heat retention properties.īut the earliest representation of people wearing shoes is believed to be the drawings of hunters found in the Altamira Cave in Spain dating back about 15,000 years. This shoe structure was surprisingly complex. The famous footwear from the glacier mummy Ötzi is about 5,300 years old. Estimated to be 5,500 years old - between the Neolithic and Bronze Age - the shoe is made from one piece of cowhide with a grass lining. It's not known when leather was first used to make shoes but the earliest find was excavated by archaeologists in an Armenian cave in 2010.
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