"I feel like I have two left feet."
"Now the shoe is on the other foot."
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| Give Britain THE BOOT! TyrannyOfStyle.com |
With the colorful idioms and expressions about shoes in American English, it's easy to forget there was a time when shoes were stiff, symmetrical and restrictive -- a "luxury"(if one considers pain a privilege) reserved for the very wealthy. And as you might gather from our name, it was before the year 1803 -- shortly after America gave Britain "the boot."
It's an exciting time for early American history. The explosive forces that rocked, roiled and shaped our nation surge to life through hip-hop in the Tony-award tour de force called Hamilton: An American Musical. The show's creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, appears on Saturday Night Live this weekend.
Naturally, expressions of footwear appear in the lyrics -- notably the lyric "If the shoe fits, wear it" (during a rap battle between the Founding Fathers). We would argue that America had shoes on the brain from the beginning. Check out the Gadsden flag, an early motto of the Revolution.
By the time American explorers encountered Native Americans in 1803, the time was ripe for a new era in footwear -- one that united American ingenuity and European leather. You can read more about it here.
The legacy of comfort, support and shoes that actually had a "left" and "right" is honored here at 1803. No pinching, pulling, scraping or teetering: just shoes that bring old world and new world together, in harmony. Visit our website for your new favorite pair and enter promo code "fall35" to save some dough. (We like food metaphors, too!)
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