THE "PLIMSOLL SHOE"not your ordinary canvas shoe

The inside with its printed "Plimsoll lines" reminiscent of the lines on a ship's hull...

Some more "Plimsoll lines"where the nickname is coming from...

Detail of the pebble like molded under sole .....

We finally have an Indian summer here in San Francisco so yesterday ,while looking for the perfect shoe to wear ,i came upon a long forgotten "friend " at the bottom of the closet's floor,my good ol' Plimsolls.So today's post,will tell you the story of this not so ordinary shoe :the great Plimsoll....

It's said that the canvas and rubber sole shoe,was first developed in the 1830's in England,by the Liverpool Rubber Company ,who later became Dunlop[in1925].By the 1870's the shoe was nicknamed 'Plimsoll'.......

This name derives from the "Plimsoll lines",a system invented in the 1870's, by the victorian engineer Samuel Plimsoll. Back then,unscrupulous ship owners for maximum profit,had the tendency of overloading their ship,resulting,most of the time ,in loss of goods but mostly loss of crew at sea.

The "Plimsoll lines" are the system of lines seen on ship's hull ,designed to control and limit the volume of goods loaded onto ship.It was said that,on the shoes ,the rubber part attached to the upper canvas part resembled the Plimsoll lines ,hence the name.

The shoe, generally black or white with a few in brown,was commonly used as a typical gym shoe and part of the school uniform in the British Commonwealth,where it was also often used for corporal punishment.

In India, where the shoe is still produced,white plimsolls are often worn by school children.A brown version is used by most police and military units as a gym training shoe; they are also part of the uniform.....