What Is The Actual Height For A High Heel?

[Curt]

silly question, maybe? I think kitten heels are less than 2", midheels are between 2" - 3.5", and high heels are 3.5" and up. Foot doctors seem to think 2" are high heels. Interesting question though. My friend asked me: if your heels are 4" and the platforms and 2", are they still considered high heel shoes? What is your perspective on this?

[stw8]

To me, I would say yes, on the mere fact that the shoe still raises your heel 4" off the ground. The 2" platform just reduces the stretch/angle of your foot.

[Heelster]

Around this neck of the woods, logger work boots are high heels - - -No accounting for bad taste.

[Histiletto]

"Heels" first started referring to the footwear that had the thickness/height support which raised the heel of the foot higher than the level of the ball joints of the toes. The height of this support became identifiers of one's social status. These supports were also found to be useful as stops which helped to secure the placement of the feet in saddle stirrups when riding horses, mules, oxen, and etc. Heels also became higher and sharpened spikes to be used as weapons by horse riding warriors. (Knowing the stability of the small tipped heels of today on hard and smooth surfaces, I wonder what it was like as those warriors with sharpened high heels to get off their horses and walk on the stone floors and other hard surfaces. Maybe they brought along some other footwear for this activity.) As the social attitude turned to revolution against the unjust and even barbaric actions of the ruling class, the higher heeled footwear became one of the identifying traits the rebels used to get rid of their social nemesises, which made the wearing of the higher heels really unpopular. Now, there were still heels of significant height being worn throughout the civilized world, but they were more conservative and adaptive to the activities most people seem to prefer during this era of establishing more social equality in the communities of European influence.

Up until the late nineteenth century, the approximate heights for heels were standard between 1cm to 5cm. Then higher heels returned to the social scene, but the stigma of the past made this return somewhat controversial. Furthermore, the over-all social attitude leaned toward the practical uses of items and away from the aesthetical perspectives, which meant the higher heels didn't fit into such standards. However, society wasn't completely blind and the impractical slendered styling of higher heels won out and became included in the desired look eventually approved only as women's wear, because the popular assumption was that no "man" could ever want footwear that seemed so inhibiting. Obviously, society dismissed the fact that men had lead the wearing of higher heels historically and such desires were also part of the male personna, being as they are human too.

This bit of summarizing history was to help in determining the actual height for what could be considered high heels. First of all, would the height of 9cm (~3.5 inches) be considered a high heel for a U.S. sized footwear of a 5? Certainly, a person with the U.S. size foot of a 15, or even a 10, would not think so. It's the slope and the physical make-up of the foot and ankle, along with the shoe's construction that determines whether or not a pair of heels can be consider "high" for each person. I can walk in 11.5cm (~4.5 inches) high heels fairly easy, while I've notice other people, close to the same size footwear, walking in 14cm (~5.5 inches) high heels with just as much grace and agility. So the actual height varies per person.

[Dr. Shoe]

Actually, "high heels" is a misnomer. They should be called "elevated heels" because the heel is the extreme rear of the foot rather than a design feature on a shoe. That aside, technically the industry considers anything more than 2" to be a high heel. There is not really any such thing as a "mid heel" or a "low heel". Higher than 2" is a "heel", lower is a "flat". To the connosieur, anything less than a 4" differential between the forepart and the heel is not a high heel.

[Steve63130]

Here's a link to "kitten heels" in Wikipedia, explaining the origin of that term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitten_heels Steve

[geo]

4 to 5 inch heels is great . stiletto heel the better.

[HeeledSlides]

silly question, maybe? I think kitten heels are less than 2", midheels are between 2" - 3.5", and high heels are 3.5" and up.

Foot doctors seem to think 2" are high heels.

Interesting question though. My friend asked me: if your heels are 4" and the platforms and 2", are they still considered high heel shoes? What is your perspective on this?

Everything in life is relative, and so are our ideas about what is a high heel.

Last week, a cousin of my wife showed us proudly her first high heels, which were ankle boots with about

2" heels. For others everything below 5" is considered low or medium.

But for myself, I would use the same division as Pumpcat has suggested.

I have seen online shoeshops using about the same norms.