Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
When sneakers were known as creepers
English brothels and Doc Marten
Matthew: Any truth to what I heard, that British Bobbies were the first to wear sneakers to help them sneak up on Jack the Ripper? —Webwalker, somewhere on the Net
Hey, Matt A.: Some of my pals and I have a disagreement over the history of a style of shoes: the heavily soled, heavily priced, heavily bought, and heavy (if you can dig it) “creepers. ” I learned somewhere that creepers were made in the late 1800s for prominent married men in England, designed so they could quietly get around inside of brothels without being noticed. My buds say, “NOT!” Matt, you gotta help me keep my Cliff Clavin status. — Bruce Stone, Spring Valley
Not quite enough ammunition here to knock you off your know-it-all pedestal, Bruce, but your pals should keep an eye on you. The shoes with the thick, wedge-shaped crepe soles, now known as creepers, were named brothel creepers by English street toughs, Teddy Boys, in the 1950s. They wore outrageous adaptations of the then-fashionable Edwardian style of dress (slim-waisted, flared suit jackets; narrow, straight-legged pants; velvet-collared overcoats) in reaction to the American-influenced, denim-wearing “Rockers.” Brothel creepers weren’t really an Edwardian accessory, though the Edwardian era was when rubber-soled shoes for the discreet of feet became available. Thieves and others in the British and American underworlds (perhaps including philandering husbands) were particularly fond of the quiet “sneakers,” as any canvas-topped, rubber-soled shoes were already known.
Creepers faded in popularity somewhat during the punk era, though Sid Vicious was partial to them. They came back with a vengeance in the late ’80s, eventually replaced by Doc Martens. By the way, Doc Marten is really Doctor Klaus Maertens, a German designer who first marketed his cushion-soled shoes and boots in 1947. British skinheads adopted them in the ’60s as the favorite boot for inflicting lots of damage during soccer riots. When a British company bought the manufacturing rights, they Anglicized Doc’s name to Marten.
As for Bobbies in sneakers, Web, more likely the Ripper wore them than the police, who wore copper-toed boots. India rubber-coated leather shoes had been around since the 1830s, but not until Goodyear figured out how to vulcanize rubber in the 1860s did anybody do much with it. And for a while, it was more an upper-class thing. But by 1900 you could buy canvas-and-rubber sneakers through the Sears catalog, and American cops began wearing rubber-soled shoes, hence the term “gumshoe,” well-known by 1910.
Here's something you might be interested in.
When sneakers were known as creepers
English brothels and Doc Marten
When sneakers were known as creepers
English brothels and Doc Marten
Matthew: Any truth to what I heard, that British Bobbies were the first to wear sneakers to help them sneak up on Jack the Ripper? —Webwalker, somewhere on the Net
Hey, Matt A.: Some of my pals and I have a disagreement over the history of a style of shoes: the heavily soled, heavily priced, heavily bought, and heavy (if you can dig it) “creepers. ” I learned somewhere that creepers were made in the late 1800s for prominent married men in England, designed so they could quietly get around inside of brothels without being noticed. My buds say, “NOT!” Matt, you gotta help me keep my Cliff Clavin status. — Bruce Stone, Spring Valley
Not quite enough ammunition here to knock you off your know-it-all pedestal, Bruce, but your pals should keep an eye on you. The shoes with the thick, wedge-shaped crepe soles, now known as creepers, were named brothel creepers by English street toughs, Teddy Boys, in the 1950s. They wore outrageous adaptations of the then-fashionable Edwardian style of dress (slim-waisted, flared suit jackets; narrow, straight-legged pants; velvet-collared overcoats) in reaction to the American-influenced, denim-wearing “Rockers.” Brothel creepers weren’t really an Edwardian accessory, though the Edwardian era was when rubber-soled shoes for the discreet of feet became available. Thieves and others in the British and American underworlds (perhaps including philandering husbands) were particularly fond of the quiet “sneakers,” as any canvas-topped, rubber-soled shoes were already known.
Creepers faded in popularity somewhat during the punk era, though Sid Vicious was partial to them. They came back with a vengeance in the late ’80s, eventually replaced by Doc Martens. By the way, Doc Marten is really Doctor Klaus Maertens, a German designer who first marketed his cushion-soled shoes and boots in 1947. British skinheads adopted them in the ’60s as the favorite boot for inflicting lots of damage during soccer riots. When a British company bought the manufacturing rights, they Anglicized Doc’s name to Marten.
As for Bobbies in sneakers, Web, more likely the Ripper wore them than the police, who wore copper-toed boots. India rubber-coated leather shoes had been around since the 1830s, but not until Goodyear figured out how to vulcanize rubber in the 1860s did anybody do much with it. And for a while, it was more an upper-class thing. But by 1900 you could buy canvas-and-rubber sneakers through the Sears catalog, and American cops began wearing rubber-soled shoes, hence the term “gumshoe,” well-known by 1910.
Comments