On the Rue du Faubourg du Temple, an original shop sign stands witness to a period when men literally killed for a pair of shoes. These men were known as the Apaches, and they took their clothing very seriously! From Pierre Drachline & Claude Petit-Castelli, ‘Casque d’or et les apaches’:

An Apache could steal, cheat, or kill if necessary to get hold of a pair of shoes that would enhance his image in the eyes of his gang or his lovers. The littlest scratch and the pair were thrown to the poor.

The Apaches were the street gangs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, taking their name from American natives following a visit from Buffalo Bill to Paris in 1905. They haunted the eastern faubourgs of Paris, and were generally very young, partly because their life expectancy was so short. These were men who lived fast, drinking, partying and stealing, and they were immediately identifiable by the clothes they wore. Each gang was dressed slightly differently, often wearing something such as a red scarf that would be both a sign of belonging and a means of identification in other territories. However, certain elements were the same in all gangs. All wore a certain type of trouser, tight at the knees and flared at the bottom, known as a Bénard. These were named after the tailor who made them, a certain Auguste Bénard, and the word is still used in Parisian slang today to designate a pair of trousers (bénard, ben’ or bénouze).
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