Saddle Shoes? Did you ever have a pair?

[jen0610]

I loved saddle shoes. I don't remember where we found them, but DD11 had a white and purple pair a couple of years ago. She loved them.

 

[jen0610]

I also had jelly shoes and leg warmers for fashion accessories.

I had jelly shoes, too!

I had purple jelly shoes!!! I thought I was so cool and also wigwams..does anyone remember them??

Wal-Mart and Target currently have Jelly Shoes for sale. DD11 turned her nose up to them earlier this summer, but she was looking at them last weekend. This is the same girl, who last year was dismayed at the thought of leggings with a skirt, but who now wears them. The 80's fashions are coming back.

 

[veraletta]

I had to wear them when I was little but not for fun or because I liked them, I had to wear them for corrective shoes.

 

[littleteapot]

I had to SLEEP in saddle shoes! My hips were messed up from a birth defect, so for about 5 years as a kid I had to wear Forrest Gump-ish leg braces (only mine were flexible) attached to saddle shoes.

As a kid, I never, ever wanted to be a cheerleader because they wore saddle shoes. By the time I reached HS, cheerleaders were wearing athletic shoes, but I chose the dance team anyway - yanno because white go-go boots were so very cool in the late 80's.

Me too, horrible! Saddle shoes had a "Thomas" heel that could be removed and fitted to the braces. Saddle shoes were the opposite of attractive and popular.

The terrible thing is all those years were a waste for me. I'm still pigeon toed and they don't do anything like that for kids anymore.

 

[Michelle67]

I had to SLEEP in saddle shoes! My hips were messed up from a birth defect, so for about 5 years as a kid I had to wear Forrest Gump-ish leg braces (only mine were flexible) attached to saddle shoes.

Me too! Only my braces were exactly like Forrest Gump's. I had a different apparatus at night, though. It was connected to another pair of saddle shoes, and it was a bar between my feet to hold my legs apart and my feet straight. My sisters remember that I would manage to get out of my crib and walk around with it on, looking like Frankenstein.

I only vaguely remember wearing my braces because my doctor decided that I wouldn't wear them once I went to school. He felt they had probably done all the good they were going to do, and the social stigma and kids making fun of me was likely to do more harm than the braces were going to do good at that point. I DO remember getting to actually pick out shoes that I liked, though, and being so excited about that!

 

[Kath2003]

I grew up in the 90s - cycling shorts and those t-shirts which changed colour when you got hot were the order of the day!

 

[sdarwkcabemanmy]

Not only did I have jelly shoes..I had a pair of HIGH HEELED Jelly shoes.
When I was a sr. in HS, there was a trendy shoe store near where I lived that sold jelly shoes in 'exotic' colors such as 'Coca-Cola' (brownish black), "Root Beer" (creamy brown) and "Wild Vanilla" (whitish-yellow). They had 2 inch chunky heels and looked a bit like strappy sandals, only they were jellies. I wore them everywhere, even with a pair of jeans and a somewhat raggedy American Flag-print sleeveless shirt at the post-prom party I attended.

My mom bought us bike shorts to wear one summer, along with some of those Hypercolor shirts. Remember those? I had one that had a graphic of a man on the front. When he was cool, he appeared to be dressed in a 3 piece suit and a fedora. When he heated up, the fedora disappeared and the suit turned into a tanktop and board shorts.

 

[HunnyPots]

I remember saddle shoes making a huge come-back when I was in jr high.
Then when my daughter was 3 or 4 she had to have a pair so she could be like Bert!

 

[DawnCt1]

I loved saddle shoes!! My girls even had some when they were little, they looked cute in them.

I remember the cheerleaders wore them when I was in middle school.

DSs had them as the "next shoe" after their "high white baby shoes". I dressed them like babies, little shorts, sun suits, overalls, etc when they were little because I knew I didn't have a chance as they approached school age.

 

[suzimar57]

oh, yeah - saddle shoes - wore them in elementary school - yuck.

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

As a golfer men saddle shoes are still fairly common.
We(male golfers) really need help when it comes to the fashion thingie.

 

[mamamary]

another Catholic schooler here....we had to wear them through grade 8.....I did love my saddle shoes....I even liked polishing them every Friday! What a little Dork!!!

Me too. Only we only wore them a few years and then they let us expand on what we could wear on our feet. I also loved saddle shoes. I forgot about polishing them. That brings back memories.

 

[tink_n_pooh]

I wore saddle shoes in the early 80's.

I also had jelly shoes and leg warmers for fashion accessories.

And I used to wear bright neon colored socks with my jelly shoes

 

[c4a]

Saddle shoes-yup!They were my everyday shoes for school. Sundays, I had to wear black patent Mary Jane's-hated those MJs!!

Mom also put me in polyester bell bottoms (red, yellow, green striped with lady bugs as back pockets-geez!), blouses with ruffles down the front or great big butterfly collars, and the pageboy do.

The only thing worse than the fashion in the 70's was what I did to my hair in the 80's. Tease. Aquanet haze. Tease. More Aquanet.

 

[Dixie Luvr 98]

I, too, had to wear them for corrective reasons when I was small.
They were the only shoes I had and my mom hates them to this day because she said they were so hard to keep clean on a toddler! She about flipped when I had to wear them for cheerleading years later

 

[sk8ingmom]

Me too, horrible! Saddle shoes had a "Thomas" heel that could be removed and fitted to the braces. Saddle shoes were the opposite of attractive and popular.

The terrible thing is all those years were a waste for me. I'm still pigeon toed and they don't do anything like that for kids anymore.

Yeah, I still walk funny too.
My brothers (5 & 10 years younger) skipped the saddle shoes / braces and had casts put on their legs at about 6 months. They are both just fine.

Me too! Only my braces were exactly like Forrest Gump's. I had a different apparatus at night, though. It was connected to another pair of saddle shoes, and it was a bar between my feet to hold my legs apart and my feet straight. My sisters remember that I would manage to get out of my crib and walk around with it on, looking like Frankenstein.

I only vaguely remember wearing my braces because my doctor decided that I wouldn't wear them once I went to school. He felt they had probably done all the good they were going to do, and the social stigma and kids making fun of me was likely to do more harm than the braces were going to do good at that point. I DO remember getting to actually pick out shoes that I liked, though, and being so excited about that!

I had the bar too, but earlier than the braces. I barely remember the bar. I vividly remember the braces - wore them K-2nd grade.

My orthopedist recommended to my mom that I start ice skating as physical therapy when I was 2 since you can't skate pigeon-toed. Well...as you may be able to guess from my screen name...33 years later, I'm still on the ice. Of course after my parents spending roughly a gabillion dollars on 15 years of competitive figure skating, I still walk funny! Being pigeon toed just made all the skating moves much more difficult for me.

 

[momrek06]

I did not have saddle shoes as a kid that I recall at all....but I bought them for my (now 22yo) son as a toddler. Those and his OSHKOSH overalls everyday were just so adorable.

 

[SwedishMeatball]

I wore them in Kindergarten (74-75), along with my poncho, which my Grandma crocheted.

 

[Just Jan]

I got a pair of saddle shoes (black bottoms) my freshman year of high school for cheerleading and I loved them. I wore them all four years to cheer. My jr and senior year we had a coach that was a Patriots cheerleader so that was pretty cool. during basketball season we wore white Keds. I still have the saddle shoes in a closet. I have only worn them with Halloween costumes...as a cheerleader and I don't remember the other.
When both of my daughters went to kindergarten I got them saddle shoes. They were more like sneakers/keds, but very cute

 

[LukenDC]

I used to wear saddle shoes when I was in college. I thought they were classy.