Unfitting Shoes: Footwear Fashion and Social Mobility in Colonial Peru

This article examines how colonial women of European and non-European ancestry in colonial Peru, adopted and adapted the footwear fashions that crossed the Atlantic. In doing so, they not only feminized the public space, but also created their own style that was consistent with the forms they perceived as high fashion. Styles such as the elevated chopines, the dainty shoes and the open-toe gold, silver or diamond buckle shoes speak to the buying power of women from different ethnicities in a society in which social mobility was a daily practice. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14636204.2013.868243