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Feet altered by footbinding were known as lotus feet and the shoes made for them were known as lotus shoes. In late imperial China, bound feet were considered a status symbol and a mark of feminine beauty.
Though utterly rejected in China now—the last shoe factory making lotus shoes closed in 1999—it survived for a thousand years in part because of women’s emotional investment in the practice.
Pair of shoes for women's bound feet, 19th century. Brooklyn Museum Lotus shoes. Lotus shoes (simplified Chinese: 莲履; traditional Chinese: 蓮履; pinyin: liánlǚ) are footwear that were worn by women in China who had bound feet.
Chinese Foot Binding - Lotus Shoes. “Chinese Girl with Bound Feet” Nineteenth-century photograph of a San Francisco child who wears beautifully embroidered three-inch “lotus shoes.” This cruel practice lasted from the tenth century to 1911, when it was banned by the new Chinese republic.
For several hundred years, millions of Chinese girls had their bodies painfully misshapen to conform to a prevailing social expectation. Intact feet, girls were told, would damage their marriage...
Tiny “golden lotus” feet – achieved through breaking girls’ toes and arches and binding them to the sole of the foot with cloth – were thought to be a passport to a better marriage and a better...
For over a thousand years, tiny feet were symbols of feminine beauty, elegance, and sexuality in China. In order to achieve the goal of tiny three-inch "lotus feet" (the lotus was a kind of flower), most young Chinese girls had their feet bound tightly with strips of cloth to prevent growth.