So, here is the story on the red shoes.
No, I did not go out and get 18th century shoes that would draw a link to the Wizard Of Oz. I wish I had, it’s a great idea!
The actual story is pretty good though. Getting period shoes is tricky. We need hundreds and hundreds of pairs. In any given episode we will have hundreds of extras, and for every extra you have to have two or three of anything to try on until you find what fits and works. Make sense?
We have period shoes made for our principal actors. But we could not possibly afford to make hundreds of shoes for extras at over $100 per pair. So, we “cobble” together shoes. We search out, remake, re work, dress up, dress down shoes we get from all over the place. (don’t want to even discuss Season Two)
ANYWAY, there was this one pair of shoes. I am not even sure where we got them. They were actual period authentic shoes, but they were in a tiny size and RED. We couldn’t really use them on the show.
We kept putting them away on the shelf, but oddly, they just kept ending up in the middle of one of the aisles in our shop. Eventually, we just kind of left them there, and walked around them, saying, “someone has to put those shoes away”.
We were doing a fitting with Lotte one day, and were walking through the shop. There they were, like something from an episode of Twilight Zone, the shoes, sitting in the middle of the aisle staring up at us, beseechingly.
“What are THOSE??”cried Cinderella/Dorothy/Wicked Witch/Lotte.
“Oh those shoes, we have no idea where they came from, and they are too small for everyone, anyway.”
Needless to say, they fit. Perfectly. In, oh so many ways.
