High Heeled Elegance - A Memoir

A high-heeled shoe is defined as a shoe whose heal is higher than the the toe. It holds a place place in our society like none other. No other shoe, however, has gestured toward leisure, sexuality, and sophistication as much as the high-heeled shoe.

Heels have been there since the beginning of time. Egyptian butchers wore heels, to help them walk above the blood of dead beasts. In ancient Greece and Rome, platform sandals called kothorni, were used by actors who would wear shoes of different heights to indicated varying social status or importance of characters in plays. In ancient Rome, sex trade was not illegal and female prostitutes were readily identified by their high heels.

During the Middle Ages, both men and women would wear pattens, or wooden soles, that were clearly a precursor to the high heel. In the 1400s, chopines, or platform shoes, were created in Turkey and were popular throughout Europe. Chopines could be seven to eight or even 30 inches high, requiring women to use canes or servants to help them walk. Chinese concubines and Turkish odalisques also wore high shoes, prompting scholars to speculate if heels were used not only for aesthetic reasons but also to prevent women from escaping the harem.

The formal invention of high heels as fashion is attributed to the rather short-statured Catherine de Medici (1519-1589). At the age of 14, Catherine de Medici was engaged to the King of France. She was small (not quite five feet) relative to the Duke and was hardly considered a beauty. She felt insecure in the arranged marriage knowing she would be the Queen of the France and in competition with the Duke’s favorite (and significantly taller) mistress. Looking for a way to dazzle the French nation and compensate for her perceived lack of aesthetic appeal, she donned heels two inches high that gave her a more towering physique sway when she walked. Her heels were a wild success and soon high heels were associated with privilege.

During the French Revolution, in 1791, Napoleon banished high heels in an attempt to show equality. The heel lowered greatly in the 1790s until it was reduced to the merest wedge or replaced by a spring heel. From this period to the 1930s, there were four major types of heels used on Western woman’s shoes: the knock-on, stacked, spring, and the re-emergence of the Louis.

In the 1860s, heels as fashion became popular again. When they made their comeback, some wearers were comfortable in five- or even six-inch heels. While high heels enjoyed widespread popularity in the late nineteenth century, early twentieth-century women demanded more comfortable, flat-soled shoes. It was not until the twenties when higher hemlines encouraged visible, high, Louis heels.

With the creation of the miniskirt in the early 1960s, stilettos were attached to boots that enhanced the look of bare legs.  The feminist believed that these heels portrayed women as sexist and made them venerable towards men. As a result, heels dropped and thickened, and soon low-heeled shoes with square toes replaced the stiletto.

Platform shoes became immensely popular in the 1970s. While lower heels were preferred during the late 60s and 70s, higher heels returned in the 1980s and early 1990s. By the late 1990s heels started to decline once again as the hippie revival emphasized comfort over fashion.

Women in the 21st century have more shoe choices than ever before. From athletic wear to the glamorous evening heels, women can choose to wear what they want. What is certain is that heels have not disappeared and will remain an integral part of women’s fashion for ages to come.