Today, a pair of the ruby slippers will be sold at auction. Not just any pair, but those worn by Judy Garland when Glinda magics them off the Wicked Witch of the East’s feet and proclaims, ‘There they are, and there they’ll stay,’ they are the most pristine, and best made, of the five pairs known to exist from the production, and the only pair to not have felt adhered to the forward foundation. They are in excellent condition but not untouched by time.

As an ardent fan of the film, Judy Garland, and the slippers themselves, I’ve revelled in the release of new photographs of the slippers in the past few months, along with the opportunity, due to the slippers’ short tour to Solange Azagury-Partridge stores in Los Angeles, London, and New York, to see the slippers for myself.

But, while I’m excited by these prospects, and immensely glad to have had the opportunity to stare at them myself for over three hours in London, the idea of the auction still leaves me feeling quite sad indeed. These shoes are iconic, in the truest sense. They have been said to be the single most valuable piece of Hollywood memorabilia in the world, and regarding sheer dollars and cents, that may well be true. But to me, they’re more.

The ruby slippers would be as valuable to me, if they had no monetary value at all, and as a pair of shoes, they very really don’t. After all, after 72 years, no human being could ever wear them again. Placing them on a human foot would very likely destroy them. Their value is in their connection; not in what they are, but in what they mean.

Entering Solange in London a few weeks ago, I was immediately struck dumb by the slippers, resting silently in a glass case, in the middle of the small boutique. Staring at them for only a moment, I had a flash of everything they mean to me, of memories of sitting in front of the television, of endless hours reading about every detail of the production, and even of (yes) running around in a glittery pair of red shoes as a child. But more than that, standing in their presence, knowing what they are, and who wore them, I felt like I was in the presence of some small part of Judy Garland’s legacy, almost as if, in some small way, she was there, and I almost began to cry.

Steve Wilson, the curator for the film collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin, which holds in its collection five of the gowns originally worn by Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind, has said ‘[T]here’s nothing that captures the human aspect of film like a costume,’ and that is exactly what I experienced with the slippers. It was that moment of realization that the stories of the creation of The Wizard of Oz, Production 1060, are not just stories. This seems self-evident, of course, but I wasn’t alive then, so, for me, it only felt like a series of tales, rehashed over the years.

But rooted to that spot, staring at those shoes, I realized the filmmaking really happened, and Judy Garland really wore them. Of course, no one placed any value in the shoes then (they cost perhaps $13 at the time) and after the production they were placed in the loft of a barn on the MGM backlot, where they rested, largely forgotten, for thirty years, until costumer Kent Warner rediscovered them in 1970, and took them home. They were the pride and joy of his collection, as, like me, a fan of Judy Garland, and Classic Hollywood, until he was forced to sale them due to his own failing health.

But the slippers are not just valuable because Judy wore them; after all, her other costume pieces have sold for much less than the slippers will realize. They are valuable because they are the main plot device in perhaps the most beloved film in the world, seen by more people than any other. Their value is about us, about those of us who saw Oz as children, and still hold it close to our hearts. For others, they are nothing but a pair of gaudy shoes; for us, they hold a very real magic.

The shoes are not just, as so many have said, an abstract symbol of home, or fantasy, or family.  They are a very real symbol, of our own attachment to our own memories of Oz, of our own pasts. For me, that’s my childhood, entwined in Oz, as it were; being the Wicked Witch for Halloween, watching the film when I was recovering from heart surgery at the age of five, or receiving an Oz snow globe nearly every Christmas of my life.

The slippers are valuable to me because, in a very real way, they are part of my childhood, they are part of my life, they are part of me, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that sentiment, because our popular culture becomes a very real part of our lives and our identities, which explains why they are so valuable, in so many ways, to so many people.

So, the idea that they will be sold, to the highest bidder, reduced to monetary value, breaks my heart a little. I realize we live in a capitalist society, and that’s just the way it works, but I’ve genuinely shed tears over the fact I can’t have them, save them, protect them. I want more than anything, to see the slippers in a museum. If whomever wins the slippers today should ever read this, please know, what you possess is not just a relic of Hollywood history; you own a symbol of a very real part of many people’s lives, and they want, if not deserve, to see them.

My greatest fear with the auction is not simply that they will be sold, but that, after today, they will seemingly disappear. Now, it’s not fair to say that they’ve always been on display. Kent Warner never displayed them publicly, and their most recent owner only did so intermittently, but I always knew who owned them, and had some idea where they were.  After today, like Michael Shaw’s stolen pair, they will quite possibly disappear from public consciousness for years, if not forever.

I hope I’m wrong, I hope with all my heart I’m wrong.

If you’re the lucky winner of the slippers, please prove me wrong. Display them for the public. Let them see them; let them love them. At the very least, please email me, if only so I’ll know they’re safe.

Based, as they are, on Tod Machin’s diagram of Roberta’s shoes, they bear a striking resemble to that pair, and I honestly couldn’t be happier, after all that work, of how they came out.  But, that said, they are currently on eBay. I had placed an auction shortly after their initial completion, which did not end with a winner. The current auction is listed at a lower opening bid (just over $300) and with no reserve.

So, if you’ve followed me on this journey, and you’d love to make these slippers your own, now is your opportunity. The auction ends this weekend, and it is open to anyone around the world, and rest assured the shoes will be shipped, fully insured, to their new home.

Genuinely, I’m sad to see them go, and if times weren’t what they are, I would happily keep the slippers, but I’m hoping the slippers can find someone else who will appreciate them and take the same care with them that I did in creating them.

This blog should provide any potential buyers a wealth of information about the slippers, but should anyone have any questions, feel free to contact me!

To go directly to the auction: click here!

After finishing the bows, I gave the soles a once over, repainting them, since working on the shoes over the past year had caused spots of paint to rub off, and then added the orange felt to each of the forward foundations.

So, after nearly thirteen months of work, the replica ruby slippers are now finished. They certainly are a far cry from glitter, slip-on shoes, and construction paper, and they have been an amazingly revealing adventure! In replicating the shoes, you realize the exacting skill Adrian and his team populating the Wardrobe Department had. The studios were stockpiles of nothing more than raw talent in every department.

Gilbert Adrian

It is telling that these artisans crafted several copies of the slippers in a matter of no more than a few months (in various versions), while it took me over a year to craft a single pair! Granted, I came to this project with nothing more than the most basic sewing skills, those procured in your average home economics course. I’ve never taken a serious sewing course (although I’d genuinely love to!), so, I understandably had many moments of doubt, almost convinced the project would never be completed. That might explain why I sewed, and resewed, almost every detail of the slippers. I ultimately figured out how to sew the shoes by first making every possible mistake!

So, now, they’re finished. I had always intended to craft the slippers purely for myself for my own memorabilia collection (small as it is), but, having finished them, I would like to offer them for sale. If anyone is seriously interested in having the shoes, please feel free to contact me! I can almost guarantee they will be the only pair I will ever offer for public sale. While I am in the process of beginning a second pair, they, with little doubt, will remain with me!

Thank you to everyone who has taken this journey with me, and an even bigger thank you to the friends I’ve made along the way; it’s been longer than expected, and full of challenges, but the finished slippers have been very much worth the effort!

The (almost complete) replica ruby slippers

Anyone who remotely knows the ruby slippers is familiar with their distinctive art deco bows, and those bows, more than any other aspect of the slippers, have stressed and worried me, giving me (truly) sleepless nights. I have, in all honesty, been seriously studying the bows specifically as long as I’ve entertained the notion of replicating the slippers. They are the one aspect of the slippers which must be perfect, or the whole project turns from a wardrobe replication to a clumsily completed craft project. That would never be acceptable!

In Rhys Thomas’s Ruby Slippers of Oz, a former employee of MGM’s leather room, Eddie Fisher, who along with his ‘co-worker Nick Samson were given the job of producing bows for the ruby slippers,’ relates much about their construction.

According to Fisher, ‘Two weeks before shooting began, […] two young men from the wardrobe department came to the leather room. They opened two shoe boxes and placed on the work bench two pairs of [ruby] slippers with bows of red silk ribbons. They said Adrian had made a last minute change on the bows and showed us a sketch by Adrian of an entirely different kind of bow…

Adrian's 'entirely different' bow

‘The sketch showed a leather bow shaped somewhat like butterfly wings that lay flat on the shoes and implanted around the edges were red rhinestones. In the center were three raised red stones that glittered like jewels, and between the edges and red stones were implanted bugles.

‘At a glance one could see by the sketch this new bow, or buckle as Nick and I called it, was a great improvement over the red silk ribbon bows. We were requested to make four pairs of identical bows as shown by the sketch.’

‘We took a section of good grained 1/8-inch leather and dyed it a bright red. With our leather tools we made all those indentions of a pattern from the sketch. Next we painstakingly implanted all those rhinestones, bugle beads, and red stones in the center that were supplied by wardrobe’ (63-64).

At first glance, this passage seems immensely helpful, and yet what is suggested here is that the various jewels affixed to each bow were sewn directly to the leather bows. So, that’s where I started, taking a 1/8^th inch strip of leather, painting it red, and trying my best to sew each of the beads through the leather itself. If this sounds like an impossible task that’s because, well, it is! 1/8-inch leather is just shy of 3mm thick. That’s not thin, and far too thick to stick a needle through. The needles just broke, period. After much frustration, and more than a few bloody fingers, I realized my assumptions might have been off…

I made two erroneous assumptions here, one that 1/8^th inch actually means 1/8^th inch. It doesn’t. Rhys Thomas himself was kind enough to enlighten me; the leather in reality would have been thinner than this, and probably pounded to make it more malleable to be worked. John Henson corrected my second assumption, pointing out the overlay wrapped around each bow. Of course, given that the sequining was sewn to the shoes via an overlay, it’s far from surprising that the bows would be the same. I personally have seen two of the original pairs in person, and yet I never realized that detail.

Over the past few months, with John’s irreplaceable assistance (In many ways, these shoes really have become a collaborative project, and they truly wouldn’t be remotely what they are without John’s help!), I have (thus far) created three finished bow overlays, which I have then attached (with varying levels of success) to the underlying leather. At present, the replica slippers sport two of the completed replica bows, but (being me) I’m not quite pleased with the bow on the left shoe, so I am currently sewing a replacement overlay which I will soon sew to the shoe before I finish the shoes off with their felt soles.

They aren’t quite finished yet, and they’re already better than I could have ever imagined!

The first bow, under construction!

I began the bows by modifying the stones I received to bring them even more in line with the originals. Like mine, the original stones are simple craft stones, made of red glass. Unlike mine, as I mentioned in a previous post, they have a gold-foil backing. Fearing that the replica stones lack of such a backing might alter the way in which light reflected through them, I felt it necessary to add the gold to the back of each stone before proceeding with the bows. To do so, I purchased a small booklet of 24-caret gold leaf, (because gold, obviously, is expensive!) and used size and lacquer, to apply it to the back of each of the stones. Whether the gold on the backs of the original stones is real, I don’t know, and I certainly doubt, but mine is!

Gold-leafed replica stones

I readily admit, I am no expert in applying gold leaf, particularly on a surface so tiny, which accounts for why the edges of the stones are not as clean as they could be, but given that none of this will be – remotely - visible on the finished bows, I’m not concerned. I honestly tried to go back and add a bit of leaf to clean up the edges, but this got some of the leaf on the sides of the stones, which I then had to meticulously clean back off and relaquer, and when this was done, some along the very edges came off as well, so I accepted the slightly shabby edges. Again, none of this will be remotely visible, and the purpose of the gold was to alter the reflection of the stones, which it does, so all is well!

Bow in Progress. (Forgive the color and focus, this image is barely two inches wide)

Once this was done, (which took longer than you would expect, but what doesn’t?) I began the bows in earnest. I have begun sewing the bows, stone by stone, beginning with the central stones, then the rhinestones around the central stones, and then the wings. (Thanks to John Henson for his guidance here, as everywhere!)

So far, I have completed the center of the first bow, along with the rhinestones of one ‘wing.’ I with proceed by sewing the rhinestones of the left wing, and then fill it in with the other central stones, and finally the bugles.

I’m aware that this doesn’t really look like much of an ‘update’ BUT, consider that the misplacement of any stone by as little as a half millimeter will result in the bows looking crooked or crammed, so most (if not all) of the stones have been sewn more than once to ensure their proper placement. (This line of thinking further explains why the sequins took me seven MONTHS of full-time work to sew!)

For now, let the sewing continue!

Replica Bow Stones

I was contacted a few days ago, that the custom cut stones for the bows are finished, and, more importantly, finally cut to the exact specifications of the originals! Ultimately, it only took them three attempts to cut them authentically, after I initially placed the order last December! But, judging from the stones once I recieved them, I honestly couldn’t be happier. The cut, this time, is exact to the originals. So, now the bows begin, right? Well… not quite.

Original Bow Stone

On the original cut red glass stones used on the ruby slippers, each stone is gold-backed. (Look closely at the lower edge of the stone in the photo above)  Mine, as you can see, are not. Initially, I thought close enough was, well, close enough. But I’m a stickler for detail, and it occured to me that without the gold backing, the stones would not reflect light in the same way as the originals (or MIGHT not, and I don’t like those odds). so, I’ve decided (after consulting with slipper expert John Henson) to add gold leaf to the back of each stone individually. Doing so will be (relatively) simple, so this afternoon I’ve ordered the gold leaf and will be applying it to the back of the stones as soon as it arrives.

So, again, we wait, but not (remotely) as long this time! In the meantime, I’ll be working on a mock-up of the bow, now that I have the stones and can size everything out! I, for one, am quite excited to be approaching the finish!

Smithsonian Slippers - Left Bow

Clearly, this blog has not been updated in quite some time. I have been contacted by various individuals asking, rightfully, if it ever would be! Let me put those fears to rest. No, I haven’t lost interest in the project, and no, I have not simply given up. For the past few months, I have been, much like everyone else, waiting. Some months ago, in December, I ordered a run of stones for the bows, custom made to the shape, size, and color, of the originals. With the help of slipper friend John Henson, I thought I had all the specifics the stone cutters would need to accurately replicate the stones. Well, I was half right. I provided the correct specifications, they just don’t seem to have completely listened…

Smithsonian Left Bow (Image: The Costumer's Guide to Movie Costumes)

The glass stones themselves should have a rectangular table-top cut, with a small hole at either end for threading. The original stones are flat-backed, and gold-foiled. The stones I received, while the right size, were not, unfortunately, quite the right shape.

Bow Stone Diagram

The stones I have, after nearly six months of waiting, had been cut incorrectly. Instead of flat-backed (as shown above), the stones have small facets on the back, making them both inaccurate, and much more difficult to sew down, than the originals, since each side is beveled! Given the errors to the shape of the stones, they are now being recut, and I should have them in yet another month or so. So, more waiting! I must give the company its due though, they are recutting the stones at no charge, and it was a genuine mistake, which they readily admitted, and are doing their best to rectify, so, no harm done.

(Still Unfinished) Replica Slippers, (Beside the Maltese Falcon)

In the meantime, the shoes remain unfinished, and while we wait, I will be practicing sewing the bow design, using the incorrectly cut stones for sizing, (as they are the right size, despite their imperfections), to get the design and technique of them down, before I create the final bows.

So, that explains the wait. But I really am still committed, as ever, to finishing the shoes. I began seriously considering recreating the slippers nearly a year ago now, and they still aren’t finished. If you had told me that a year ago, I would have thought you crazy, but, for now, the work continues…

Replica Slippers

After seven months of near constant work, the replica Innes shoes are now fully sequined. It took much longer than I ever expected, but I have to admit I’m quite pleased with them!

Replica Heels (in progress)

To begin finishing the sequining, as with the toe and lower heel, I worked alternatively from each side of the shoe, working from the top of the upper down the back of the shoe, creating much the same stair-step pattern found elsewhere on the toe of the shoes. Once this was complete, I then sewed a finishing strand at the top of the heel to cover all the knots sewn there from the threads on the lower heel.

Fully Sequined Replica Slippers

Once this process was complete on both shoes, I then ran the finishing thread along the top of the opening of each shoe. In doing so, I made sure the sequins did not stick up past the top edge of the shoe, rather, I sewed them in such a way that about a millimetre of the shoe’s red fabric is visible just above the finishing row of sequins, just as is the case on the original shoes. Ensuring this clean line at the opening required that I sew each finishing strand at least twice, as I found I was dissatisfied with how the sequins were laying initially, but resewing them resolved this.

Dorothy (and the Wicked Witch) as costumed during Richard Thorpe's period as director of Oz.

At present, without their famous bows, the slippers are nearly identical to those used during the first two weeks of shooting of The Wizard of Oz under Richard Thorpe (12 October 1938 – 24 October 1938). Granted, I have yet to add the orange felt to each front foundation, as I will do so at the same time I sew on the bows, but, I certainly feel the shoes are already quite an accomplishment, and I very pleased with them so far!

I will next begin working on the bows, and the work on them has slightly begun, as I have already acquired the required bugle beads and rhinestones. However, I have yet to receive the central stones, as I am having them custom made for the shoes, so completion of the bows, and therefore the shoes, is currently delayed until I receive them. But, thankfully, it should only be a delay of, at most, a month, so the light at the end of the tunnel is, slowly, approaching!

Replica Slippers

Replica Slippers

Following the same method I outlined in the previous post, I have now sequined the heel of both shoes, and I must say they both look markedly authentic, when comparing the design I created with that found in reference images of the Smithsonian shoes.

Next, I plan to complete both uppers, by joining both sides of the design at the heel, in much the same stair step pattern found on the vamp at the center of the toe. I have intentionally sequined the upper to the front edge of the heel, and then sequined the heel itself, before continuing with the upper. I am hoping to create some level of seemlessness between the upper and heel by now completing the upper in such a way to allow the first sequin of each row on the upper heel to overlay the top of the heel ever so slightly, to cover the threads at the very top of the heel itself. We will see how this will turn out, but I am quite confident in it!

Smithsonian Shoes (Image: Source Unknown)

Once this has been done, I will then run the finishing edge of sequins around the opening of each shoe, before commencing with the construction of the bows!

Replica Heels

Replica Slippers

As can be seen above, the sequining of the replicas is now quite progressed. I’ve continued to work up the sides of the shoes, working on all four sides successively. At this point I have almost reached the top of the back of the upper on both heels, and this being the case, I am now working on completing both lower heels before finishing the uppers above them. In doing so, I’m hoping to cover the top edge of the lower heel with the edge of the sequins from above, giving the sequins the same (largely) seamless transition between the upper and the heel found on the authentic pairs.

Smithsonian Slippers (Image: The Costumer's Guide to Movie Costumes)

Thus far, I have sequined the  lower heel of the left shoe, and am currently working on completing the right. To do so, I have followed much the same system I have set up for the rest of sequining, establishing each line of sequining with a thin line of painter’s tape, and sewing the sequins along its edge. For the heels, like on the vamp, I work on each side consecutively.

Replica Slipper

On each heel I established the design with a single line of sequins, basing the design on that found on the left Smithsonian heel. Each heel, on each pair of slippers, from what I can see, varies slightly in the exact angle of this design, and I simply chose that which I found most aesthetically pleasing.

Replica Slipper

From this, I then worked outward, sewing the design on each side of the heel, before attempting the inverted ‘V’ shaped portion of the design. When doing so, as before, I simply sewed a single line on each side, working up the heel (effectively sewing upside down), tucking the last sequin of each row under the preceding perpendicular row. Like the toes, the heel proved slightly tricky, but the result is well worth the effort!

Replica Slippers

Replica Slipper

From here, I will work to finish the right heel, replicating the design I have created on the left. Afterward, I will work to finish the upper of the heels, before completing the sequining with the single finishing strand run around the opening of each shoe! Then, on to the bows!