saddle shoe

plural saddle shoes

1. A shoe, resembling an oxford, which has a saddle of a leather or colour different from the rest of the shoe.

   Best has quantities of the Arnold type of buckled sports shoes, as well as the saddle shoes that have been popular on campuses for many years; lots of felt hats of the Dunlap type, varied by odd crowns; and round-crowned hats with bound brims—Stetson classics.

   1936, The New Yorker, volume 12, New York, N.Y.: New Yorker Magazine, Inc., →OCLC, page 37

   2 more examples

   Shortly after the outbreak of war I wrote to the English Friends about clothing and raised the question as to whether we should send you "saddle shoes." It seems I gave you busy people no end of trouble trying to discover what a saddle shoe is . . . It is originally white and has a brown or black saddle-shaped piece of leather across the instep. The American adolescent is properly shod for all except dress occasions in saddle shoes, but not clean ones! These shoes, for reasons that only a teen-ager can explain, must never be cleaned!

   1936, Friends' Intelligencer, volume 100, Philadelphia, Pa.: Wm. W. Moore, →OCLC, page 109, column 2

   Saddle shoes were first manufactured by Spalding in 1906 as an accessory for tennis and squash. The saddle was not initially conceived of with style in mind; it functioned as an orthopedic girdle that reinforced the instep and held the shoe together against the strain of fast starts and jolting steps. […] Saddle shoes finally caught on in the 1920s as a result of Spalding's decision to outfit the bottom with spikes and go after the golf market.

   1994, Frank W. Hoffmann; William G. Bailey, “Saddle Shoes”, in Fashion & Merchandising Fads (Haworth Popular Culture), Binghamton, N.Y.: Haworth Press, ISBN 978-1-56023-031-1; republished New York, N.Y.; Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, 2014, ISBN 978-1-317-95292-3, page 212

   Synonyms: saddle, saddle oxford