All You Need to Know About High Heels!

[ilovetights]

We all love high heels here! So basically my vision for this thread is to be like a community knowledge base for everyone for high heels.

I've been interested in heels for more than 10 years now! Yet I know very little about them. Hence the title; I would like to know all there is to know about high heels (or close enough).

So things like...

History

Quality

Design

Shoe Making (Is it called Cobbling?)

Business/Retail

...and anything else that I haven't thought of.

If you have any knowledge, internet links, suggested reading or even places of interest to share, please do. (Positive) Arguments and discussion encouraged However, please back up any information with a source or some kind of proof.

50th post Also wanted to mention, I'd been thinking about making this thread since I joined but wasn't sure if it would float or sink... but I thought just do it.

[Dr. Shoe]

History:

The first heels to be recorded were worn by Catherine De Medici at her wedding in the 16th century. However, they weren't introduced for widespread use until 1605 when the metal stirrup was invented. Up until then men and women wore flat shoes with absolutely no heel at all, like ballet shoes. Men werre the first to adopt the highest heels because being tall was important to men. During the 17th century 5" heels were common for upper class men and the heels would be painted red. Women lagged behind by almost 50 years because the fashion was for women to be as petite as possible.

Quality: The Italians are renowned for their quality and design flair. However, it was spain where everyone went for shoes and particularly to the town of Cordoba. This is where the term Cordwainer comes from. There are some high quality French desiners such as Christian Louboutin and Claude Montana.

Design: The first step of the design process is to make some sketches of your ideas. You can then pick a few of them and draw better pictures of them. Then you select the last and start taping up. Once this is done you can then prepare the designs. This is quite a complex process involving making calculations to compensate for the fact that you are making a two dimensional design for a three dimensional product. You can then make a design standard onto which you can transfer the lines and marks on your blueprint. Then you need tom transfer these marks onto another template which is cut into its component parts and using these pieces you can make the final patterns after adding stitching margins.

Shoe Making: (No, a cobbler is a shoe repairer, a shoe maker is called a Cordwainer). The leather is cut using the patterns supplied by the designer. This is called clicking. Then the leather is skived and then sewn together (closing) and some other processes are done before the shoe can be lasted. Once it is lasted, the sole and heel are added and the shoe is finished.

There is a lot on the net about it and a quick google will tell you anything you need to know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heel_%28shoe%29#History