Decorating Georgian Shoes

Hello darlings!

As you may (or may not!) know, I am currently in the process of writing a book for beginner costume makers so, for the Georgian section I needed some appropriate shoes for photos!

I have spent the last few months absorbing everything Georgian (I've been doing themed research months at the moment!) so I knew the style I wanted. I didn't want heels, despite there being a few tutorials out there on how to create the rounded pompadour heel that was popular in the 18th Century, it's too much work and too much time sourcing the correct shoe. I also didn't want this project to break the bank as it was unlikely that I would wear these shoes regularly, both because I can't walk in shoes without backs and I wanted to keep them neat for any future photoshoots.

Then I remembered years ago someone recommended that I look on Amazon for mules, and lo and behold in my favourites I dug up some listings; some had expired, but there were more options in the 'related' section.

These were £27. I try to use Amazon as little as possible nowadays, but my search of 'mules' on other sites were coming up with nothing.

You can find them here.

They are SO cute as they are, but I'm going for a more lower-class look, so the stripes had to go, unfortunately. I also wanted to add a buckle to give them that iconic 18th Century look.

Inspiration pic.

I started by removing the bows which was an easy enough task as they weren't glued down, simply tied around the band on the shoe. I decided to keep the band, and it will become obvious why in a moment.

I painted the shoes using using black fabric paint.

Then I bought some buckles from Minerva Crafts. It was surprisingly tricky finding buckles of the right size and shape, but I'm happy with the ones I found in the end.

I created some small bands made from scrap fabric to blend into the already existing band as I didn't want to cut it. I used a glue gun to secure them in place.

And there you have it! Beautiful 18th Century shoes ready to tie together my Georgian outfits!

Let me know if you give this tutorial a go, or have your own way of making Georgian-style footwear!

Until next time,

Aisha x