The history of the loafer is really the history of two shoes: the
Bass Weejun and its more upmarket spinoff, the Gucci loafer; its from these two styles that all other loafers spring. The Bass Weejun was first made in 1936 and was intended to be a man’s shoe. But so many women were buying and wearing boys’ sizes that two years later Bass launched a feminine version that was a line for line copy of the original. Thanks to its mix of informality and comfiness, the Weejun went on to become a staple on college campuses across the United States. It’s on display, along with white bucks and saddle shoes, at
F.I.T.’s excellent Ivy Style exhibit, which is up until the end of January.
Patricia Mears, the exhibit’s curator, describes it as “the collegiate shoe” of the period that stretched from the 1940s through to the late 1960s, when, along with so many stalwarts of the preppy wardrobe, the loafer was largely abandoned in favor of more countercultural footwear.
Despite the Ivy League associations and moccasin construction, the loafer is neither American in origin nor named for a little known Native American tribe. Instead, Weejun is a corruption of “Norwegian.” What does that Scandinavian country have to do with the preppiest of American shoe styles? As it turns out, quite a bit: The loafer as we know it came about thanks to a combination of Lost Generation wanderlust and a growing and more general desire for comfort. Though Paris was the most famous destination for F. Scott Fitzgerald and his lesser-known cohorts, some of his peers journeyed further afield. Those who went to Norway noticed that Norwegian fisherman made themselves comfortable shoes that consisted of leather sides joined by a strip of leather across the instep like moccasins — still the way true loafers are made today. “When these young men started wearing these shoes back home,” explains G. Bruce Boyer, a fashion editor and author, “American and English shoemakers copied them and advertised them as being similar to the Norwegian fisherman’s shoe.” Foremost among the brands making this new shoe was G.H. Bass, which had been founded in 1876 by George Henry Bass.
In the United States, the supremacy of the Bass Weejun was unchallenged — from James Dean to J.F.K., everyone wore them. On college campuses, they were de rigueur, and, says Boyer, worn until they fell apart and had to be held together with duct tape (a prime example of the endurance contest that prepsters subject their clothes to). They were sometimes worn without socks, but while this is now a fashion statement, in the early 1960s, when Boyer was an undergraduate, it was more a question of convenience. “Guys who lived in the dorms wore them that way,” Boyer says. “If they were late for their first class they would put on their loafers without putting on their socks first. Other guys would show up in their pajamas.”
Pennies were often inserted in the cutout on the instep; theories abound as to why this was done — so girls who were out on less-than inspiring dates could call for a lift home (not that phone calls were ever cost a cent); for good luck; to commemorate the wearer’s birth year — but if there ever was a reason, it’s been lost.
I'm hoping this leads to some sort of massive child sex abuse/ *advertiser censored* sting. Get some of these perverted buttheads off the streets. Ugh! I have so many choice words for those pieces of poop! I want to scream obscenities right now. Can we have a venting thread where we can just list the perps name and go off on them with every name in the book?
