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The History of Shoe Laces

Updated: Jun 15

Shoelaces

A common World War II myth states that Allied Aligned Gurkha soldiers checked for laces while crawling stealthily in the ground, because British soldiers employed straight lacing, while Japanese soldiers employed crisscross lacing. This shows how important shoe laces are.




ItIt'sard to know the exact history of shoe laces, because the earliest shoes were made of materials that deteriorated really quickly. The Areni-1 Shoe, which has a very modern shoe name, was dated to Ancient Armenia in 3500 BC.

Shoelaces in the modern sense, using this eyelet system, can be traced back to the 12th century. The Knights Templar banned the wearing of shoelaces, as it ws deemed "abominable and pagan". This ridiculous idea obviously went away, with Harvey Kennedy patenting the shoestring in March of 1790 in the UK, these were the first to feature metal ends to them. Then the first synthetic shoelace was created in 1873 by John Boydell, and the patent for it was filed in 1874.




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