Carl Franz Bally founded a shoe factory in Switzerland in 1851. Within decades, the Bally name had achieved worldwide recognition for its high-quality footwear. The history of modern footwear can be traced through the lens of Bally's corporate evolution. This book brings together the results of research on such topics as the economic importance of fashion, Bally's fortunes in the US, the career of shoe design, the sourcing and use of materials, and the rise of strategic product display. The research focuses on the 1930s and 1940s: years of economic crisis and war, characterized by a wide diversity of designs and increasing variety in product range. Shortages also led to experiments with materials and technical innovations. Featuring numerous points of contact with adjacent fields of historical study, this publication marks a contribution to the history of fashion as the history of industrially manufactured products.
Author(s): Anna-Brigitte Schlittler, Katharina Tietze
Series: Fashion Studies
Publisher: transcript publishing
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 194
City: Bielefeld
Cover
Contents
Introduction
Business Cycles in the Fashion-Shoe Industry and the Controversies Surrounding Footwear Fashion in Switzerland (1920–1940)
“Bally Shoes Are Trend-Setting Fashion Creations”
Schönenwerd – New York. Bally Evening Shoes
Functional Shoes. The Development of Utility Shoes, Their Differentiation and Interfaces with Fashion
Enter the Shoe. Design in the Making
Real Gold? A Material for 1930s Shoes
Notes on Window Dressing as a New Means of Communication
“A Fairy-Tale Affair…!” Bally Shoes at the Swiss National Exposition of 1939
Contributors
Bibliography
