The History of Chinese Cloth Shoes

Cloth shoes, just as its name implies, is the one made of cloth. It has nearly 3000 years history in China. According to research, the earliest manual cloth shoes is in the Western Zhou Dynasty.

In the history of China, when in the YangShao culture period, people had already begun to wear shoes. But at that time, there is no obvious difference between male and female shoes.

When it is time to Shang Dynasty, as the morality had established preliminary, the materials like leather, silk, cloth and grass were all used to make shoes. The leather boot with 3000 years unearthed from Wu Bao graveyard is a good proof. This 12.7 cm long and 9.4 cm wide boot was made of upper, bottom and waist three parts. The aristocracy of Shang Dynasty usually wore ship style shoes, and in that time patrician class, except wearing leather shoes, fibre and silk made shoes are also commonly worn by nobleman. The common people at that time had got hold of silk weaving technology expertly and products of silk had got popular among ordinary people.

The cloth shoes before the foundation of the People's Republic of China are the traditional hand making ones which are soft and comfortable. Cloth shoes was deeply loved by people during that time. Then after the foundation of PRC, many shoes factories were opened, a large amount of cloth shoes were made by machines. This was the heyday cloth shoes making in China. After reforming and opening, cloth shoes gradually went out of shoes market, but it still kept vitality. Now in the 21st century, more and more people hold the view of natural and healthy, and many people has nostalgic feeling of cloth shoes. Wearing a pair of suitable shoes is becoming a fashion trend among many modern young people today.

Compared to other shoes, cloth shoes could be worn in more places especially some casual situation. Like the embroidered shoes, it is always famous for its attractive design in the world, what's more, it had already become a symbol of Chinese traditional women culture.