Slippers

Fashion involves many design elements which may vary at disparate speeds. This pair of slippers sports the distinctive decorative program of a light colored cotton upper with a contrasting leather tip outlined in a white chain-stitched bow and swag motif. This design remained fashionable for some time, and while the example here shows the taste for a sharply pointed toe and tiny heel of the first two decades of the 19th century, another pair in the collection (2009.300.1466a, b) features the more rounded toe and low wedge heel of the 1810s. This pair of shoes is extraordinary in its unusual and charming ornament of a tiny silver owl with ruby eyes seated in a pearl-studded crescent moon, an appropriate embellishment for a shoe dressy enough for eveningwear.