Early "footery fashions" film sponsored by the Walk-Over Company.


This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives

Producer: Unknown
Sponsor: Walk-Over Company
Audio/Visual: Si, B&W
Keywords: Shoes; Fashion

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: eydie - - October 21, 2012
Subject: fashion show
the model is pretty and very ladylike, she looks wholesome and i like that she isn't stick thin like models of today. she looks like someone who might actually buy the clothes. the stiffness of her walk probably has more to do with the limitations of filming than anything elsse.

Reviewer: Logical - - July 17, 2007
Subject: Interesting, self-conscious too
"Modes of the Moment" was a well chosen and classy subject header. The shoes were more incidental.
Note the stockings. Stockings then were either silk (hence the seaming seen), or lisle, the cotton weave we know today as t-shirt cloth. There were no nylons yet. The fabrics then--the silks and serges and all of them were of a variety and richness not seen today.
It was harder for women to dress really stylishly, even in that day when most women were seamstresses in their own homes. Most, the mothers of the nation, dressed in cottons and woolens. My gosh, though, this film details the high-couture of American fashion for the 1 percent of women who might afford it "off the rack".

The model is nice looking. Tastes change, but be assured: we cannot criticize -them-, because we are not of their time. Anyone here today, if you had been born instead to that era: you'd be in that boat, applauding the wind (if male) whenever a lucky breeze flapped a skirt for your surprise viewing.

We can only observe from afar today--and understand, that at core, we are no different today, but are more free for casting off that terrible yoke of "keeping up with fashion", which once was a nearly total and enslaving yoke put upon women, who had very few other opportunities to shine or exceed, than by fashion statements, and so, social climb.

Women today are doing so much more--and it was at that time, in '17, before and after, the movement was afoot to make modern female equality a reality. They worked for posterity.

I'm reviewing social history more than the film--but the topic of fashion needles deep into two bias weaves: women enslaved and women freed.
Peg skirts on one side, Bloomers, the other.

Reviewer: Marysz - - December 22, 2005
Subject: FashionRidiculous Then and Now
A model stiffly displays the latest fashions of 1917. In order to stay within camera range, she can only circle and tilt her head towards the camera. But todays fashion shows are no less artificial and will look no less absurd to future generations. Looking at these elaborate ensembles, its hard to believe that within ten years it would be the era of the flapper and the New Woman of the 1920s. For an interesting contrast to the clothes shown here, look at the way the mother in the Tribune-American Dream Picture is dressedin 1924, only seven years after this film was made. The mother in the Dream Picture wears clothes that give her the mobility to dash around San Francisco looking for her lost baby. The woman shown in this film can only take tiny steps in her pegged skirts. Obviously women became fed up with such elaborate and impractical clothes.

Reviewer: frenchmarky - - September 11, 2005
Subject: Very weird
I think the reason the walking looks stiff is because it's the same old speeded-up action as other silent movies so once you speed up normal stepping around, it ends up looking like awkward, quick stomping. And here I thought commercials at the movies was a new phenomenon, looks like they were doing it 90 years ago!

Reviewer: huskobon - - July 11, 2004
Subject: Interesting..
Shhh... the signs are talking...

Man this was actually kinda nice to see, and the file was not to bad for 1917.

Reviewer: Spuzz - - November 11, 2003
Subject: The season's most favored styles!
A VERY peculiar find here, showing us the latest fashions of the day (1917) (or the modes of the moment, which sounds better!) All the dresses here actually don't look half bad, with some notable exceptions:
That heeled shoe looked AWFULLY uncomfortable to wear.
I'm sorry, but the veiled thing looks like something a bee harvester would wear.
I liked the 'Creative Use Of Ribbon'
Finally, the models are walking way to stiffly. As if they had metal poles down their backs.
Awfully historical, Awfully hysterical too, and short to boot, this is a great download. It's a MUST SEE ON THIS SITE!

Shotlist

MODES OF THE MOMENT, an early "footery fashions" film sponsored by the Walk-Over Company. Includes titles.


Shoes Fashions Feet
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