My family was not one that did any hunting and fishing, so the “seasons” that we paid attention to were either weather related, or sartorial. (BTW, isn’t “sartorial a great word? It means of or relating to clothes, especially tailored clothes.)
Since I grew up in Oregon, there were only two seasons, Rain, and Summer, which also means that Oregonians on a whole don’t care much about knowing clothing rules. But I was curious about the life and times of people that didn’t dress exclusively from the Columbia Sportswear catalog.
Growing up, my mom still believed in new dresses for Easter. With the new dresses came the debate about white shoes. Since Oregon is not a hot-weather climate, we didn’t know about many of the season rules for certain types of clothing. The general rule for white shoes is that they are limited to wear between Memorial Day and Labor Day, but we stretched it back to Easter. So, now that Labor Day is almost upon us, let’s investigate this tradition.
I turned to my etiquette book collection to see what I could find about the origins of this particular fashion edict. A paper I’d written in graduate school sparked my interest in collecting etiquette books. The crux of my arguments was that these behavioral manuals did not reflect everyday behavior, quite the opposite. After all, if you have to look it up, you probably aren’t doing it already. I used to joke that not a single guide to good manners says, “It would be wise to wear clothes when going outside.” But these days I think there is a direct correlation to people wearing their pajamas outside and the slew of people with their ass literally show out the bottom of their clothes is related to the lost interest in etiquette books.
Everyone should know that public nakedness is a no-no. Although, I highly recommend some of the “etiquette” books published by Cosmopolitan Magazine in the 1970’s and their tips for coming out on the winning side in the sexual revolution!
To see what I could find about seasonal rules for white shoes, I thumbed through every chapter on dress from the 1850s until early 2000s. The earliest mention of white shoes came from the 1874 edition of Mixing in Society. While dressing properly to appear at court, “the shoes should be of white satin, and trimmed according to fashion. (pg. 122)” These went well with your dress, feathers in your hair, and train that was seven yards long (yes, that’s 21 feet of white dress trailing behind you as you curtsy to the Queen!) Court presentations in Queen Victoria’s time were held at four stated periods every year–two before Easter and two after. So there goes the Easter rule according to Queen Victoria. And if there ever was someone that loved the rules, Miss Vickie took the cake!
White shoes don’t come up again in any of my books for the next fifty years, although apparently until after the first World War women were being constantly advised to quit cleaning the house in their soiled ballgowns. And I’m here to tell you, I’m totally starting THAT trend up again! Etiquette be damned! The books from the 1920s are very concerned about white gloves, but no mention of shoes is made. Which tells me there must have be a rash trend of colored gloves that was sending the matrons of the flapper era into quite a tizzy. Another guide for teenagers and college students in the 1940s simply jokes that it’s rather unwise to wear white shoes all winter. One should dress to the season.
The best admonition, and the only one that mentions a time of year, is the beloved Judith Martin, in her 1982 edition of Miss Manners Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior. She states clearly that “White shoes may be worn only after Memorial Day and before Labor Day. Otherwise you will develop warts on your toes. (pg. 544)” And with the same force and wonderfully wicked sense of humor the Etiquette grrls, in their 2002 book Things You Need to Be Told, even remove the seasonal rules and give a detailed list of “Articles of clothing which are never, ever acceptable attire…Cutoff shorts, acid-washed jeans, White Shoes unless you are a nurse or a bride…”
But in essence, what every book on dress, appearance, and behavior reiterate is that one should be comfortable, not seek to make anyone else uncomfortable, and not to be an inappropriate weirdo when it comes to your clothes. So, with that I will leave you to make your own judgement about your closet full of white shoes and when to wear them. And stay tuned for my own etiquette book, How to Not Be an Inappropriate Weirdo, coming to a bookstore near you one of these fine days….
