Clog (shoe)

"Sabots" redirects here. For other uses, see Sabot.

This article is about types of footwear. For other uses, see clog.

Plain willow-wood Dutch clogs, for everyday use

The word clog, as applied to footwear, has these meanings:

A type of shoe or sandal made predominantly out of wood.
A type of heavy boot or shoe with sides and uppers and typically thick wooden soles. They may have steel toecaps and/or steel reinforcing inserts in the undersides of the soles.
A special kind of shoe worn while clog-dancing (clogging). They are similar to tap shoes, but the taps are free to click against each other, therefore producing a different sound than tap shoes.
Nowadays, "clogs" also means comfortable slip-on shoes. They are often made out of leather, but some clogs keep the bottom part out of wood. All-rubber clogs are often worn while gardening, because they can be easily hosed off and allowed to air-dry. Some clogs come with heels, and are usually distinguished from mules by their higher vamp. It is commonly accepted that men and women can wear low-heeled or high-heeled clogs.^{[citation needed]}

Clogs (with meaning 1 or 2) were, and in some regions still are, widely worn by workers as protective clothing in factories, mines and farms.

1 Traditional clogs in Europe
2 Clogs as overshoes
3 Clogs in 1970s fashion
4 Platform clogs in 1980s and 1990s fashion
5 Images
6 Notes
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

Traditional clogs in Europe

Dutch man with clogs walking on ice.

Traditional clogs are made out of many different species of wood (willow, poplar, birch, beech, alder wood). They are associated with the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden (though Swedish clogs do not resemble Dutch clogs) as part of the touristic "Holland"/Sweden image, where they are seen as a form of national dress. Because of this, Dutch people are sometimes called cloggies, that is, clog-wearers. In Dutch, clogs are known as klompen. The traditional, all wooden clogs have been officially labelled as safety shoes, passing European standards for the CE mark with flying colours and can withstand almost any outside penetration to the wearer's feet such as sharp objects or concentrated acids. The Dutch people's longtime association with wooden clogs can be traced even as far back as the traditional creation mythos of the ancient Germanic Tribes who lived in the region at one time. Today, Dutch clogs are available in many tourist shops. Wearing clogs is considered to be healthy for the feet. Despite that fact, the Dutch don't use them much anymore for everyday use, but clogs are still used by people working in their gardens, farms, and by planters.

In England slats of wood held in place by thonging or similar were known as "Pattens" and they were usually worn over leather or fabric shoes to raise the wearer's foot above the mud of the unmade road. Poorer people who couldn't afford shoes wore wood directly against the skin, and so the clog was developed, made of part leather and part wood. The English tended to carve Welsh and West Country alder, Scottish birch and Lincolnshire willow. The Welsh used alder, birch & sycamore.^[1] The wearing of clogs in Britain really took off with the Industrial Revolution, when workers in the mills, mines, iron, steel, and chemical works, workshops and factories needed strong, cheap footwear. The heyday of the clog in Britain was between 1840s and 1920s and, although traditionally associated with Lancashire, they were worn all over the country, not just in the industrial North of England.^[2] There is a theory that clogging or clog dancing arose in these mills as a result of the mill workers entertaining themselves by syncopating foot taps with the rhythmic sounds made by the loom shuttles. Clog dancing became a widespread pastime during this period in England. During the nineteenth century, competitions were held and there were professional clog dancers who performed in the music halls.

Clog dancing is a continuing tradition in Wales. The difference between Welsh clogging and other step dance traditions is that the performance will not only include complicated stepping, but also 'tricks'. For example, snuffing out a candle flame with the dancer's feet, 'toby stepping' - similar to Cossack dancing — and high leaps into the air. Clog fighting, known in Lancashire as 'purring', was a means of settling disputes. Both the fighting, and the betting among spectators was illegal.

"It is all up and down fighting here. They fought quite naked, excepting their clogs. When one has the other down on the ground he first endeavours to choke him by squeezing his throat, then he kicks him on the head with his clogs. Sometimes they are very severely injured."^[3]

A Swedish clog

The French name for a wooden shoe or clog is sabot. in the 18th and 19th century clogs became associated with the lower classes. From this period the word sabotage derived from sabot, reportedly describing how disgruntled workers damaged workplace machines in France by tossing their shoes into the mechanisms. However, according to some accounts, sabot-clad workers were simply considered less productive than others who had switched to leather shoes, roughly equating early use of the term sabotage with inefficiency.^[4]

Clogs are traditional also in Northern Italy and southern Switzerland, where they are often part of the traditional local costumes. In Friûl, clogs are called, palotis, galosis or dalminis. They are traditionally made with an upward pointing wooden sole and a leather hood.

In Asturias, Cantabria and Galicia, the self-governing territories in northwestern Spain, there is a long tradition of clog making and wearing. The Asturian and Cantabrian clogs are unusual in that they have two 'feet' on the ball of the foot (see picture of the Cantabrian clog, below); so that with the heel, the whole clog is elevated off the ground by three supporting structures like miniature stilts. This is said to be useful when working outside or in the barn.^{[citation needed]} These clogs are still worn in many rural northern Spanish pueblos today. Traditionally a slipper is worn inside the clog and the clog is kicked off at the door before entering the house.

Clogs as overshoes

Pattens are an overshoe variant of sandals or clogs meant to protect other footwear by either covering or elevating it above the street. Geta are Japanese wooden shoes worn outside the house, and are also worn in Korea and elsewhere.

Clogs in 1970s fashion

Swedish clogs became popular in the seventies and eighties for both sexes. They were usually worn without socks and were considered suitable for the avant-garde man.

Platform clogs in 1980s and 1990s fashion

Based on the clog model, platform clogs or sandals, often raised as high as 6 or even 8 inches right through between sole and insole, were another fashion of the 1980s and 90s in many western countries for women. This large mid layer was often made of solid cork, although some were merely of flaky plastic with a cork covering. The sole, more often than not, was made of a light sandy-colored rubber. Some of the platforms of these clogs were encompassed about with a stringy laced effect.

Images

Traditional clogs	Clog sandal	Medieval pattens or overshoes worn under the shoe to keep it clean and dry when outside, c. 1465	Clog boot
Clog sandal	Wedding clogs	World's largest clog, 4 m long, in Enter, The Netherlands	Cat in painted clogs in Amsterdam
Clogs of Cantabria (Spain)	Clog boots from Osterbruch, Lower Saxony, Germany	Clog museum, Porcheresse en Ardenne, Belgium	Clogs of Porcheresse en Ardenne, Belgium
Souvenirs for the G.I.'s after the Ardennes Offensive (1945) - Porcheresse

Notes

^ Traditional English Clogs Retrieved on 28 October 2oo8
^ A brief history of English clogs Retrieved on 28 October 2008
^ English Clogging in Lancashire in the 1800/1900s Retrieved on 28 October 2008
^ The I.W.W.: Its First Seventy Years, 1905-1975, Fred W. Thompson and Patrick Murfin, 1976, page 81.

References

Shoes and Pattens: Finds from Medieval Excavations in London ISBN 0-85115-838-2
Stepping through Time, Archeological Footwear from Prehistoric Times until 1800, ISBN 90-801044-6-9