The Scarlet Slipper
Maker: Unknown donor
The Scarlet Slipper, c.1928
Single leather shoe size 4
Museum no: .031
The Scarlet Slipper was a love story published in London Life magazine in 1928. Its female protagonist, the One-legged Venus, is a cabaret artist who performs nightly in the 1920s London club scene.
The author, Walter Stortt, was captivated by what he called her ‘maimed beauty’. Readers were inspired to openly discuss their fetishistic desires around disabilities in response to The Scarlet Slipper.
The magazine’s correspondence pages displayed no sexual unease or disavowal seen in other publications of the time. London Life was published weekly and could be picked up at underground stations.
The story goes that the solitary scarlet slipper belonged to a maimed Cinderella. Whether she is the inspiration for the One-legged Venus in Stortt’s fiction is uncertain.
