Six surprising facts about the history of high heeled shoes
From the killer stiletto to the casual cowboy boot, one can find a pair of heeled shoes for almost any occasion. But when did people start strapping on their high heels, and how did they become a staple of 21st-century fashion?
In the You’re Dead to Me podcast, Greg Jenner is joined by comedian Lauren Pattison and historian and Dr Elizabeth Semmelhack from the Bata Shoe museum, to learn about the highs and lows of high heels through the ages.
1. Stiletto heels get their name from an Italian dagger
Stilettos and their famously spiked heels are named after a type of slender-bladed dagger used in Renaissance Italy. It’s hard to pin down when in the 20th century the slinky stiletto heel was invented, but Roger Vivier from the House of Dior made some of the hottest heels of the 1950s. However, a thinner stiletto heel did mean it was trickier to support the wearer’s weight, a designing dilemma which led to Andrea Perugia making the first heels of steel. Talk about a killer look!
2. Heeled shoes were originally designed for Medieval soldiers
The earliest evidence we have of someone wearing heels is from a 10th-century Persian bowl. Pictured on this Medieval artefact is a cavalry trooper poised for battle with his heel locked into the stirrup of his horse. That’s right, we can thank horses for our heels!
3. Not all heels were made to be seen
Worn in the 16th century, particularly by women in Renaissance Venice, chopines were a type of platformed shoe that could reach as high as a teetering 50cm (20 inches). Although there is a myth that chopines were used to keep women’s skirts out of the mud, it is more likely that chopines were in fact used to make women taller so they could show off more yards of their luxurious dress fabrics. The chopines themselves would be never seen. What a waste!
Venetian Chopines
Are Chopines the first platform shoes?
Greg Jenner and his guests Dr Elizabeth and Lauren discuss high-heeled shoes.
4. High heels were a kingly fashion
King Louis XIV of France, also known as The Sun King, had a real hankering for high heels. A fervent 18th-century fashionista, he favoured elaborately embroidered leather shoes with a bright red heel. However, King Louis was quite possessive of his pretty pumps and was one of the first rulers to restrict the wearing of red heels to members of his court.
5. The first great shoe designer was François Pinet
In the mid-19th century, the French designer François Pinet became the first great shoe designer. Making use of new industrial practices, he made beautiful (and reproducible!) “Pinet” heels which were finished with fine hand embroidery.
6. High heels were used as an excuse to keep the vote out of reach for women
During the fight for suffrage towards the end of the 19th century, high heels were weaponised against women who wanted the vote. Opponents of suffrage argued that high heels were evidence of women’s frivolity, with an 1871 New York Times article reading, ”Show us first the woman who has independence and sense... enough to dress attractively... in shoes which do not destroy both her comfort and her gait”. Rude!
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