Vintage Images of Women Shoe Shopping (And The Humble Salesmen That Served Them)

Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fond in The Lady Eve

Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve

Pulled from the vast retro-archives of Flashbak, here are a miscellany of vintage images, primarily found photos, of ladies shopping for shoes.  Many of these photographs feature their humble manservants hard at work selling them their beloved footwear.  Enjoy.

27_Early Al Bundy

Here’s a found photo of a young man in the early 1970s struggling awfully to get this woman’s shoe on. (Perhaps she should try a smaller size?) I’m not sure he’s got what it takes to be full-time shoe-salesman material.

vintage shoe shopping

1940s shoe salesman

Once upon a time, shoe salesman was a semi-respectable job that paid a living wage.  But as Al Bundy in Married… with Children can attest, those days were numbered by the 1980s.

vintage shoe sales

Found photo from early 1970s.  Back in the day, there weren’t cheap shoe stores that sold footwear manufactured in sweat shops for pennies.  Buying a shoe was a serious purchase.

vintage shoe salesman 1970s

vintage shoe shopping 1970s

How many romances bloomed between shoe shopper and shoe seller? One can only wonder.

61_The Avengers

Diana Rigg has made quite an impression on her shoe salesman.  Can you blame him?  From the April 11, 1966 episode “Death at Bargain Prices”.

For Laughing Out Loud #15 4 1960-

For Laughing Out Loud, April-June 1960

vintage shoe store

“‘If the shoe fits, wear it.’ You can be assured it will at C & H Shoe store in downtown Marion.”

vintage shoe salesman

As I said, shoe salesman was still an okay job in the early seventies… still, it does look as though we caught this gentleman at the moment of career choice regret.

Lady eve poster-shoe fitting 1941

vintage shoe store 1970s

Diana decides on school shoes (while the nerdy Barnes Pelletier sales-boy quietly celebrates his good fortune).

1970s shoe store

31_shoe sales

GeeWhiz1967-04p038

From Gee-Whiz humor magazine (1967)

shoe store 1970s

The shoe salesman (above left) is already counting down to cocktail hour.

vintage boy and girl at shoe store

Of course, not all shoe sellers were men. Not to neglect the saleswomen, here are a few additional images from yesteryear…

18_Holiday Shoe Store

vintage women shoe shopping

vintage women shoe store

Umm.  I don’t think we’re in Foot Locker anymore.

47_3-25-2012 11-41-28 AM

1940s womens shoes

vintage shoe saleswoman

vintage sales girl shoe store

Well, you have to dive pretty deep into the far reaches of the retro landscape to uncover this many old-school shoe-selling pictures.  That’s plenty for one day – time to put down the Brannock Device, punch the clock and take that much needed cocktail break. Until next time.

archie comic shoe store

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