The Eighties

An ad for Dr. Martens which appeared in magazines in the late 1980s.

The business and dress shoes for women were styled with classic lines and construction. The classic slingback court shoe was suited to the professional woman of the eighties. Chanel offered seven different variations of this shoe each season. Toes again became pointed, and the heels were slender throughout the decade. Loafers and man-styled oxford pumps were approved with tailored power suits.

A return to classic shapes and colours and the new shoes and boots for leisurewear are the important aspects of eighties footwear. Designers began to blur boundaries between one type of footwear and another with beautifully sculpted heels on boots, and pumps that reached the ankle.

The athletic shoe craze was not restricted to men. In 1980, a New York City Transit strike prompted thousands of women to don their running shoes and, high-heeled pumps in hand, walk to work. This phenomenon out-lasted the strike and, for most of the decade, one could see a woman in a perfectly tailored power suit wearing a pair of Reebok running shoes.