STUDIO INSCRIPTION: UNKNOWN

DESCRIPTION: BUGLE BEAD

SIZE: 5 C / 6 B (SUSPECTED)

HEEL: UNKNOWN

SOLE: UNKNOWN
INNES PRODUCTION NUMBERS: UNKNOWN

 

Worn by Judy Garland while the film was under the direction of Richard Thorpe

Visible:
Production stills from the Thorpe era
Any surviving film from the Thorpe era, although none is believed to still exist

A bugle beaded shoe is NOT visible in the costume test photos taken on October 31, 1938

Notable differences:

The pair was covered in glass bugle beads instead of sequins
This pair had no bows

Notes:

This pair was deemed too heavy for dancing, and was changed to a lighter sequin version when production shut down to replace Richard Thorpe and Buddy Ebsen. 

It is unknown why only one pair is rumored to exist, when the studio had a procedure of creating backups for all important costumes. It is possible that MGM discarded duplicate pairs during one of their costume purges, but for that to have happened the other pairs would have had to have been stored somewhere other than where the sequined slippers were.

Nearly all information on these shoes can be traced back to Michael Shaw, as the first printed reference to them came from a 1982 college paper by Tod Machin where Shaw spoke about them

Current location:

According to Michael Shaw, the bugle bead pair went to a friend of Kent Warner who also received a screen used pair, and Michael "doesn't know what happened to them" from there. However, Michael is the only friend of Kent's to have received a screen used pair. The other screen used pairs went to the auctioneers, Kent himself, a fellow costumer that was not friends with Kent and did not receive the bugle bead pair, and the final pair was with Roberta Bauman since 1940. If they truly went to a friend of Kent's that got a screen used pair... put two and two together.