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Designer Lara discusses her final year collection which was inspired by punk and rockabilly subcultures.

Classic punk shoes have endured the test of time as a silhouette of boldness and power, remaining a testament to counterculture and resistance. We delve into their fascinating past, from its formation in the 1950s to the inception of the iconic creeper shoe we know and love today.

Mary Jane:- " A flat, round-toed shoe for women and girls, with a single strap across the top" Walking about your life these days, you'd be able to spot several different women's Mary Jane Shoes in a variety of colours and styles from the highstreet to the dance floor. Traditionally, the Mary Janes are closed, low cut shoe with either a singular or multiple buckle strap. Mary Jane shoes are such a popular style these days, it's hard to imagine life without such a pivotal style It's strange to think now that they appeared fashionably through the Renaissance era, but worn dominantly by men. Henry VIII of England rocked a pair of Mary Jane kicks, as seen in paintings of the old king. Despite not being very popular, we love his sassy footwear choices. The buckle strap/s appeared in the early 19th Century and have been a founding feature to this great style The style became a popular footwear statement in the 20s and by the 30s and 40s women had dominated the Mary Jane as their own. In the lates 90s popular sub cultures such a punk rock, psychobilly and goths claimed the style but added an alternative twist of platforms, chunky heels and thicker straps to give the edge they were looking for - they were a simple school shoe no more. At T.U.K. we've added our iconic kitty character to the Mary Janes as an applique overlay on the toe, onto a wider fitting sneaker sole unit, the A6467L; which has become one of our most popular styles. Alongside the A6467L, we have boosted our Kitty Mary Janes with some attitude - The T2025 Anarchic Kitty Mary Jane was born! These two styles in particular have become continuous over the years, as there is always demand for this great timeless styles. If the chunky style isn't for you, we've made a narrow plimmie version with a variety of characters available from owls and foxes to kittys and teddys, as well as some styles now in vegan-friendly materials. In addition to the T.U.K. kitty mary janes, we've added some great mary Jane inspired heels into our collections over the years; the closed toe, multi strap look is now a favorite of ours when designing new collections. This upcoming AW14 collection, we've thrown back to the 90s when the Mary Jane platforms were popular, with our new Nosebleed inspired collection - which we are very excited to share with you, so stay tuned!!

We have found ourselves featured in the wonderful Vintage Life Magazine again this month - in an insightful article written by friend of the Brand; Lee Powell regarding the History of Creepers! We recommend you give it a read, it had us hooked :) Vintage life included how adorable our Kitty shoes are on their Instagram, we totally agree. Ballet Flats are a must have, and the super cute cat faces make them irresistible not to want, to put them on with every outfit. For fashionistas and crazy cat lady's alike- we don't judge! If you are on Instagram, follow us: @tukshoes_uk The latest addition of Vintage Life Magazine is out today, grab your copy from your local newsagent or direct from the Vintage Life website. Rockabilly sensation, Imelda May features on the cover of this month's vintage life - She's a big creeper fan and styles them like she was born to wear them, we can't wait to read this month's copy!

Some footwear styles are made for trends but creepers are not one of them, they evolved... get a fascinating insight of how creepers came to fashion, read freelance writer Lee Powell's article featured in this months Vintageville Magazine.

It’s hard to imagine that a pair of functional desert boots worn by British soldiers in World War Two would become the iconic rock n roll footwear of teddyboys and rockabillies; but believe it or not, this is exactly the case!

Originally worn in the North African deserts, these thick souled crepe boots were ideal for helping deal with the extremities of the heat and the sandy terrain of the area. When the troops returned home the boots followed and found their way back to the shores of merry old England, where they continued to be worn and over time slowly caught on as a new fashionable design of footwear.

Shoe manufactures including Denson and Ladd's noticed the increasing numbers of ex-solders as well as civilians wearing these thick souled boots and taking inspiration from them developed the Creeper or ‘Brothel creeper’ as they become known. In 1949 George Hamilton Cox joined his father’s shoe making company and got got to work pioneering the companies signature shoe Creeper, which were marketed under the name ‘Hamilton’.

There is some speculation as to where these shoes inherited this nickname of ‘Brothel Creepers’ from but rumour has it that after their return from the war a number of soldiers in the capital wanted to experience some fun after years away fighting and found themselves in the dim neon lit back streets of Soho to enjoy its labyrinth of seedy adult entertainment. This is a wonderful story and if it’s true adds a wonderfully decedent grit to the shoes 60 plus year history.

Around the early 50’s a new youth scene, the Edwardians, later to be known as the teddyboys, was in its infancy and quickly adopted this new, innovative shoe design as their own. As the popularity of the teddyboys grew so in turn did their distinctive style of dress which incorporated the Creepers and thrust them into the limelight that the teddyboys found themselves in. As this scene grew ever more poplar clothing and footwear manufactures were quickly to jump on the band wagon and produce their own adaptions of the Teddyboy uniform and in turn made it easier to obtain but the drape suits and creepers, which exponential increased the number of youth’s becoming teddyboys and their public visibility. *

Towards the end of the 50’s and early 60’s a number of other rocking youth scenes; rockabillies, bikers and rockers, developed from the influence of US music and films which were being increasing popular in the UK. These groups along with the teddyboys were very much intertwined, all inhabiting the anti-social outskirts of teenage youth cultures and shared a common bond their love of rock n roll music. Although each group has their own distinctive style one often borrowed from the other and people in the scenes often moved from one to another as the years passed. This resulted in a cross pollination of styles to a certain degree and one element of clothing which transgressed each of these scenes with great ease was the ever distinctive creeper.

As is often the case fashions changed along with music and as the years moved into the 60’s the visual popularity of these rocking teenage youth cultures declined as others such as the mods increased and as such creepers were all but resigned to the dust-bin of fashions history except for a small army of die-hards who soldiered on with their scenes.

In the early 70’s two young disenfranchised Londoner’s, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, who both had an interested in 1950’s rebellious culture opened the now infamous ‘Let It Rock’ shop at 430 Kings Road. Westwood started making Teddyboy clothing for McLaren to sell, but his time with a modern, more in your face appearance than its 50’s predecessor. George Cox as an already established shoe manufacturer still existed although now focusing on producing other shoe designs, soon realised there was a growing interest in a newly popularised Teddy boy scene and with this came an interest in their creepers which were also sold in the shop

By 1972’ Let It Rock’ had become ‘Too fast to Live, Too Young to Die’ and changed its prominent stock from the neo-Edwardian wear of the teddy boys to the leather jackets and t-shirts of the rocker but still kept a stock of creepers and ordered in drape jackets for those who required them. Yet again there was a crossover of the teddyboy and rocker scenes and as before creepers were on prominent display with both genres. In a bid to push the mantel of fashion and tastes to the extremes by 1974 ‘Too Fast…’ became the infamous ‘Sex’ and shortly afterwards via the Sex Pistols and British punk McLaren turned music and fashion in its head and spat in the face of anyone who wasn’t willing to surrender to its spiky attitudes. Although at this time the “uniform” of the punk wasn’t wholly formulated as it was to become in later years and creeper became, for some time the punk’s footwear of choice. During this time however punk wasn’t the only music / fashion subculture on the rise. The reintroduction of the teddyboys some years previous had kick started the rock ‘n’ roll revival which pulled together legions of teddyboys, rockers and rockabillies, who as before donned the creepers as they had always done.

At the time the two subcultures went nose to nose and their fights became headline grabbing news stories, however as quickly as it had all stated it ended and the two went their merry way and occasionally met somewhere in the middle in the form of psychobilly. Yet throughout all of their differences one common denominator remained true, the creeper shoe.

Since the late 70’s and early 80’s the growth in interest in creepers remained on a steady incline being utilized by the rocking communities and punks alike. Then as they always do fashion and popular culture become interested in both scenes and although in the mainstream both had a slight decline during the 90’s, since the new millennium saw the light of day it opened up a huge chasm in the world of fashion and musical based subcultures where one borrowed heavily from the other. 5 or 6 years ago there were a handful of companies producing Creepers nowadays you can find endless reams of styles and variations online and even the odd pair on the local high-street.

There are still a number of shoe manufactures which specialise in creepers and this has slowly increased yet throughout the melee of change one scene has remained as true to the creepers as there were in the 50’s and today these wonderfully distinctive shoes still form a core element in the look of teddy boys, rockabillies, psychobillies and rock ‘n’ rollers all over the world.

As already stated there are a dizzying array of creepers available online and in the high-street. These vary from company to company as well as price and quality. Although cheaper creepers can act as a good introduction you’d be advised to invest in a pair form one of the specialist companies manufacturing them such as T.U.K as they are more likely to last years longer than some of the cheaper more fashion based designs.

*For a full history of creepers including images, see the article in January's issue of Vintageville Magazine here.

We would like to offer huge thanks to Lee Powell for allowing us use this article on our blog. Lee has some great images and content on his own blog you can check it out here.