Posted
on March 27, 2014
Buckle
up your shoes!
Slip
on your slippers!
Button
up your boots!
There
have been all sorts of ways to keep shoes on our feet, all through
history—including ancient and medieval shoelaces—but on
this date in 1790 an Englishman named Harvey Kennedy introduced
something that caught on big and has been big ever since:
Modern shoelaces.
The
kind of shoelaces that go through pairs of holes; the laces can be
loosened to allow the foot to enter the shoe, and then tightened to
hold the shoe securely on the foot.
Back
in the day, traditional shoelaces were made of natural materials:
jute, leather, hemp, cotton. Now shoelaces tend to be made of
synthetic (human made) fibers. The downside of synthetic fibers is
that they are more slippery, so laces can come undone more easily—but
the synthetic laces are stronger and last longer.
(Boy,
have I had problem with “cool” leather laces – they break so
easily!)
Apparently
one feature of modern shoelaces, the aglet, was also used by ancients
to some extent. Aglets are the hard tips on the ends of shoelaces,
which prevent the laces from fraying and which make it a lot easier
to thread laces through the lace holes or eyelets.
There
is some evidence that aglets were used in Roman Empire times to help
thread ribbons and other clothing closures. They were made from
metal, glass, stone, brass, or even silver. These days, our shoelace
aglets tend to be made of metal or plastic.
I
read that Harvey Kennedy's 1790 shoelaces frustrated people because
they had no aglets, and so they quickly became difficult to string
up. The very next year, Kennedy's updated invention included aglets
made of tin or stone.
I
also read that Kennedy made a lot of money—millions!—with his
shoelaces.
Did
you know...?
- Shoelaces are also called shoestrings or bootlaces.
- Necessity is the mother of invention, don't you know, and many different people have reinvented ways to make aglets when a shoelace breaks and they can't immediately get another. I know that I have used small pieces of adhesive tape in an effort to make a shoelace I can thread through holes. During the Great Depression, people made aglets out of paper and glue.
- There are almost two trillion ways to lace a shoe with six pairs of eyelets!
To
celebrate the day…
Fancy
up your favorite pair of tennis shoes with colorful shoelaces.
Or
try a new shoestring lacing pattern.
Here's
a cool idea: Use multiple shoelaces to lace up your left shoe with a
different lacing pattern than the one you use on your right shoe!
Learn
more about shoelaces at Ian's Shoelace Site.
Also
on this date:
Plan
ahead:
Check
out my Pinterest boards for:
And
here are my Pinterest boards for:
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ReplyDeleteOff-White shoelaces
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ReplyDeleteslipper