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Pattens, sometimes known as bath clogs,
are designed to protect the feet from floors which are wet (as
in a hammam, Russian bath , or sauna) or to insulate them from
the heat of a floor heated by a hypocaust (as in an ancient
Roman bath or a Victorian Turkish bath.
Victorian pattens were simple wooden
sandals, rather like flip-flops in appearance, though made of
wood, and much closer in style to the modern ones sold today by,
for example, Hammam Ltd of Istanbul.
More elaborate models worn by women in
nineteenth century Turkey would often raise the feet several
inches off the ground and be highly decorated, as in the example shown
above, from the Shoes from
around the world section of the Northampton
Shoe Museum.
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