Late '70s fashion: Women's shoes from the 1979 Sears catalog

Sexy shoes add zing to spring: Women’s shoes from the 1979 Sears catalog

Spring ’79 will be a season of sensuality for footwear — and glove-like fabrications, bright colors, sculpted heels and “echoes of the ’40s” are the trends to watch, reports the Footwear Council.

The shape is closer to the foot, rounder, softer — and that goes for business shoes, sports shoes and dress shoes for men, women and children.

Women will become familiar with the “citisandal” and the “fisherman” shoe this spring. The former boasts stacked heels in myriad shapes and heights, a palette of colors ranging from pale neutrals such as champagne, sand and pebble to clear, crisp brights such as honeydew green, pale banana, Pacific turquoise and Chinese red.

There will be a large variety of strap combinations, perforations and cutouts featured in the shoes, fabricated in soft leathers and supple suedes.

Sporty and sophisticated women’s shoes from the 1979 Sears catalog

The French-inspired fisherman sandal works with pants or skirts, goes sporty or sophisticated. This style can be an intricate jumble of criss-crossing straps or just two buttery-soft folds of leather. It can rest on flat-flat heels or scooped-out wedges, stacked mid-heels or stiletto spikes.

For the casual fisherman, check out delicate snakeskins and linens, the Footwear Council suggests. For a fisherman’s elegant evening ashore, perhaps nubuck, soft and velvety as a summer night.

The council also reports an assortment of disco shoes that defy description. Fantasy is the key: glamour and sparkle, bursts of color and strappy metallics, the highest of heels and the barest look possible — but the chic-est as well.

– Article from Lancaster Eagle-Gazette (Lancaster, Ohio) – March 22, 1979