This style of footwear became fashionable in the years following World War II, seeing resurgences of popularity at various times since then.

A version of this style of shoe became popular with World War II soldiers in North Africa, who adopted suede boots with hard-wearing crepe rubber.

[1] Writing in The Observer in 1991, John Ayto put the origin of the name 'brothel creeper' to the wartime years.

[3] The Bikini boys youth subculture in post-war communist Poland of the 1940s and 1950s was famous for their adaptation of brothel creepers (often made by local cobblers attaching thick rubber sole to regular normal footwear).

[5][6] The shoe has since been adopted by subcultures such as indie, ska, punks, new wavers, psychobillys, greasers, goths and Japanese visual kei, and have been worn by Bananarama, the Cure frontman Robert Smith and Saffron, singer of Republica.