China has diverse customs and styles as regards its traditional dress culture, and the abundance and variety of Chinese footwear justifies its being singled out from other items of apparel to be studied separately as “shoe culture”. Footwear is an interesting facet of the many aspects of Chinese culture.

Men’s palace shoes during the Qing Dynasty were straightforward. They were slim but virile.

From “Foot Clothing” to Leather Boots

Ancient Chinese distinguished the main items of dress as “upper clothing,” “lower clothing” and “foot clothing,” the latter referring to both shoes and socks. In the ancient script engraved on bone and tortoise shell it depicts a whole animal hide that has been trimmed and stretched out. This would indicate that, at the time written Chinese was being formulated, socks and shoes were both related to leather. In ancient times there was, in fact, no distinction between shoes and socks. The ancients would protect their feet by cutting out pieces of animal hide, wrapping them around their feet, and securing them with leather thongs. According to archaeologists, this kind of foot wrapping first appeared in the Old Stone Age.

Later, in the process of making footwear ancient people learned to use bone needles, to dry and hammer animal tendons thin enough to use as thread, to dye animal hides with animal fats and plant juices, and to rub the hides with their hands to make them soft. This practice formed the basis of the method through which shoes would later be made.

The earliest pair of leather shoes in existance in China is a 4,000-year-old pair of boots made from sheep hide, worn by a mummified female corpse discovered in the ruins of the ancient kingdom of Loulan, in the deserts of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The lower and upper parts were sewn together using thick hide threads.

The ancient nomads of north China wore boots made from a variety of materials. Tibetan boots were made of yak hide, the Oroqen people used roe deer hides, and the Hezhen people used fish skin. The Huns were more sophisticated in their boot-making methods and used sheep wool rolled into felt as their basic material.

Leather boots were first introduced into the Central Plains area by King Wuling of the State of Zhao during the Warring States Period (475–221 BC). In 325 BC, threatened by contending states, King Wuling decided to replace his warring chariots with mounted archers. The king dispensed with the traditional loose robes and wooden soled, flax-fabric shoes normally worn in battle, dressing his cavalrymen instead in tunics, pants and boots modeled on the attire of the northern nomads, thus making his troops one of the strongest and best protected of the time.