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QUICK FACTS
Name: Lotus shoes
What it is: Extremely small footwear
Where it is from: China
When it was made: Between 1000 and 1950
More than 1,000 years ago in dynastic China, many young girls had their toes tightly bound in gauze strips to create the illusion of dainty feet. The oldest preserved example of their petite footwear, called "lotus shoes," dates to the 13th century, but the practice of foot-binding — known as "chanzu" in Chinese — lasted until the mid-20th century.
Foot-binding was a type of body modification practiced mainly by the Han Chinese on young girls. Between the ages of about 4 and 8, a young girl would have her feet wrapped in bandages or gauze by her mother. The goal was to create extremely tiny-looking feet by bending all four little toes under the sole of the foot and bringing the front and back of the foot as close together as possible by breaking the bones of the…
The tiniest shoe in the collection at the Textile Research Centre (TRC) in Leiden, the Netherlands, measures just under 2.4 inches (6 centimeters). Even squeezing an adult thumb inside would be out of the question. These objects, known as lotus shoes, are direct witnesses of foot binding—a Chinese body modification practice called chanzu that endured for more than a thousand years.
READ ALSOShe wrote masterpieces 1500 years before Homer—why is Enheduanna erased?→Chanzu mainly concerned young Han girls, typically between the ages of 4 and 8. A mother would bind her daughter’s feet herself, wrapping them in long strips of gauze or cotton with the goal of halting their natural growth. In reality, the four smaller toes were folded under the sole, and the arch bones were deliberately broken to bring the front and back of the foot closer together. Enjoy your next pedicure appointment with that image in mind.
The intended result: a minuscule foot, ideally 2.7 to 3.9 inches (7 to 10 centimeters) long, nicknamed the “golden lotus foot.” The suffering was well documented. Chinese writer Yang Yang, whose own mother had bound feet, told…