Colorful tiger-headed shoes are many people's childhood memories. With the development of the times and the progress of society, many children no longer wear tiger-headed shoes, and fewer and fewer people can make them. Hu Shuqing, a folk collector in Qixian County, Kaifeng, Henan Province, spent 17 years collecting tens of thousands of pairs of tiger-head shoes from all over the country, worth more than one million yuan.
According to Hu Shuqing, the work of tiger head shoes is more complicated. Tiger's eyes, eyebrows, mouth and nose are all sewn with needle and thread, which requires various stitches such as embroidery, flower picking and seed beating.
The tiger's mouth, eyebrows, nose, eyes and other places are often outlined with thick lines to show the tiger's ferocity. Careful people often use rabbit hair to edge shoes, ears and eyes.
Tiger-headed shoes are one of the traditional Chinese handicrafts, especially children's shoes. Because the toe is a tiger's head, it is called a tiger's head shoe, and it is also called a cat's head shoe in northern China. It has both practical value and ornamental value. At the same time, it is also a mascot, and people give it the function of exorcising ghosts and evil spirits. Tiger-headed shoes are complicated in workmanship, just embroider the tiger's head, pluck the hair and remove the seeds. The color of the upper is mainly red and yellow, and the tiger's mouth, eyebrows, nose and eyes are often outlined with thick lines, exaggerating the ferocity of the tiger.