Shoe historian June Swann states that every shoe tells a story. ‘Shoes speak of status, gender, ethnicity, religion, profession, and politics. You can chart the rise and fall of prosperity from the elevation of a heel; hear the distant rumblings of war in the configuration of a toe; measure social change by the thickness of a sole.’ Through the process of reproducing a pair of historic shoes, The Politics of Shoes reveals some of the social and political narratives contained in shoes and shoemaking. The project centres on the performance and preservation of heritage craft skills through the medium of living history – a form of educational history telling that uses historic tools, dress and practices to create somehow authentic reconstructions of the past. For the project, historical shoemakers and regulars on the heritage craft circuit Katarina and Juraj Matejik were commissioned to make a pair of Poulaines; shoes with long pointy toes that played a key role in medieval identity politics and ‘the war of appearances’ fought between the emergent merchant class and the hereditary aristocracy. Acting as a resource for educational outreach activities, the film that accompanies the Poulaines documents the shoemakers’ performances of historic craftsmanship. Contrary to the standard format, it expands on the usual living-history delivery by breaking from the storyworld of the period, introducing references from medieval to present day. These details illustrate the political significance of shoes throughout history; from how they are made, to what they say about you, to their use as an instrument of protest. Where once historical pageants were the principal means of communicating key cultural moments from the past to the masses, today television history is one of the prominent narrative formats. This dramatisation of history adopts diverse forms in an attempt to both engage and educate. Some of these forms have been around for a while, such as the reconstructions seen in Ken Russell’s innovative 1962 documentary film Elgar, or the proliferation of historic dramas that provide crafted plots and tension to historic events. More recently we have seen historical reality television programs such as Channel 4’s The 1900 House expand the theme by showing a modern family trying, sometimes painfully, to live like Victorians. In a lighter vein Horrible Histories, the historical comedy TV series for children, explores different historical themes and periods—a prime example of what has become known as edutainment. The Politics of Shoes film builds on the established freedoms of a screen delivery. Set in an ‘historically accurate’ medieval shoemaker’s workshop, the video has the tone of something in between Sesame Street and Open University TV—formats that use narrative devices to deliver educational content. Al- though based on the immediacy of the craftsman’s knowledge and skill, through postproduction the film is able to break from the period setting, introducing historical and contemporary references that show the political significance of shoes and shoemaking throughout history. In doing so The Politics of Shoes is able to traverse a wide range of subjects, illustrating how the most everyday object has be- come a vehicle for communication.