TheHistorialist: THE ARTICULATED SOLE | PART 3

WOODEN SOLES SHOES ON LONDON MARKET

London, September 24, 1942

Wartime Fashion Note For Women.

Wooden soled shoes, decorated in gay colours and made comfortable and noiseless by leather or rubber innersoles and inserts, are now reaching the market and are much in demand.

Innersoles with which the new footwear is equipped fit the foot as snugly as ordinary shoes, the manufacturers assert, and the leather or rubber insets in the soles make them virtually noiseless.

Their manufacture is being promoted by the Board of Trade to save shoe leather.

The News (Paterson, New Jersey)

September 24, 1942

1944 | Bally Of Switzerland

Wooden Soled Clogs

Source: The Miami News - September 22, 1944

We wrote in details of the history of the articulated sole and its variation, the split platform, but now thanks to a recent acquisition by Tracy Dolphin - of Miss Rayne fame - we can match an actual model with the 1938 patent by Léandre Grégoire Renaldo and Joseph Sciroppo.

Above: Léandre Grégoire Renaldo/Joseph Sciroppo

Split platform paperwork (Filed December 8, 1938 - Granted June 26, 1939)

Below: Tracy Dolphin's Bally Of Switzerland

During WW2 the Perugia-style articulated sole and the split-platform coexisted and Bally Of Switzerland (as it was known back then) manufactured both; advertisements of the period 1941 - 1943 prove it and place this historical piece in that time frame.

Above: Léandre Grégoire Renaldo/Joseph Sciroppo

Split platform paperwork (Filed December 8, 1938 - Granted June 26, 1939)

Below: Tracy Dolphin's Bally Of Switzerland

As noted above, the articulated sole was a clever workaround to wartime leather scarcity and - besides Bally - all the major manufacturers produced it including I. Miller and Delman. Here below the articulated sole made by New York's Sterling Last Corporation (later to be assembled at the I.Miller factory) paired with Dophin's Bally.