What Makes a Stiletto a Stiletto?

[Cali]

56 minutes ago, Puffer said:

A 'Cuban hell' is a regime run by a dictator called Castro.   

Chalk that up to vanity. I need to enlarge the screen to see better.  Lost my reading glasses. 

[Shyheels]

I thought Fidel was the original Cuban heel

[Puffer]

On 2/5/2022 at 11:39 PM, VirginHeels said:

Can’t remember where I read it, but some shoe manufacturers take a stiletto as something with less than 56mm2 and one other said it was too much, should be 5mm2 or less. The 56mm2 I guess is more a traditional stiletto, a block heel now. The 5mm2 would be a modern one, one with modern materials.

If we were to take @mlroseplant figures, it would be something in the region of a 4.55mm2 to 4.64mm2 heel so would conform to the modern stiletto heel standards. Good olde pie R squared formula!!!

Are you saying that a stiletto is allegedly a heel of cross-sectional area less than 56 (or maybe 51) sq mm - e.g. one that is 8mm x 7mm max (if rectangular)?   If so, that must require very close measurement, depending upon the cross-sectional shape.   A heel whose tip would enter a hole of (say) 8mm diameter would perhaps be an easier concept, if its overall profile otherwise conforms.

14 hours ago, p1ng74 said:

A T-Square is a good enough tool for defining block heels to me.  The back of a block heel forms a 90 degree angle with the floor.  Cuban heels have a slant, not 90 degrees.  Of course, there are varying degrees of slant, and a very slight slant might not even have any of the real visual effect of a Cuban heel, but I think this is the definition I have seen cobblers go with. 

I agree, although an obvious block heel will very often be slightly tapered, so not truly vertical at the back at least.   My ASOS Recite boots have a block heel (a D shape of width 2.3" and depth 1.9") but the heel back tapers in about 0.5" in its 3.9" height, although the front is vertical.   That slight taper makes all the difference visually but it is nothing like a Cuban heel.

13 hours ago, hhboots said:

So much deep thinking and nerdiness in this thread.  I love it. 😍 Lol

I was initially going to say it's simple for me, its a stiletto if the heel tip is less than 1/2" (13mm) diameter in any direction.  But then started thinking about it and agree with many good points of view here... it should be proportional and mostly straight for at least half of the length, and probably at least 4" (10cm) in height.  Beyond that, its pretty much splitting hairs on each persons own preferences.

I tend to agree about the nominal 'diameter' - see above, and certainly about the proportions.   But the height is irrelevant; a kitten heel of 2" or even less is still a stiletto if its shape conforms.

- - - - - 

A general problem that still has no obvious answer (despite various efforts earlier in this thread) is to give names to heels thicker than a stiletto but clearly neither block nor Cuban.   What, for example, do we call a straight heel that is around 1" in width and depth?   I can only refer back to my post of 14 January, which showed a number of shapes, e.g. Spanish and Chunky.   One man's (or woman's) Chunky heel therefore becomes another's Block heel at some point!

[mlroseplant]

All right, what the heel, let's run with this for a while. Do any of these qualify in some way as block heels? Why or why not? They are all right there in that 1" or 25 mm range in thickness, but none of them suffers from the traditional beef I have with block heels, and that is, one tends to clomp in them. If the heel is lower, this is not really much of a factor, but as one rises above somewhere around the 4" range, block heels tend to become ungainly to walk in. I'm all with @Jkrenzeron this one: Contrary to common thought, stilettos are much easier to walk in gracefully, if one can deal with the pitfalls of dropping one's heel into unperceived gaps in the surface.

[Shyheels]

I would say those were block heels - albeit on the narrower end of the scale.

[Isolathor]

1 hour ago, Shyheels said:

I would say those were block heels - albeit on the narrower end of the scale.

So let's call it a "narrow block heel"?

[Shyheels]

7 minutes ago, Isolathor said:

So let's call it a "narrow block heel"?

Why not?

[VirginHeels]

3 hours ago, Puffer said:

Are you saying that a stiletto is allegedly a heel of cross-sectional area less than 56 (or maybe 51) sq mm - e.g. one that is 8mm x 7mm max (if rectangular)?   If so, that must require very close measurement, depending upon the cross-sectional shape.   A heel whose tip would enter a hole of (say) 8mm diameter would perhaps be an easier concept, if its overall profile otherwise conforms.

Yes, my maths may be wrong as I’ve gone back and checked my working, a 56mm2 cross section is what constitutes a stiletto. If it was a true circle, a 8.45mm would be the maximum, but we know there’s a shape to a stiletto. So in theory it will be smaller to fit the cross section.

[Puffer]

10 hours ago, mlroseplant said:

All right, what the heel, let's run with this for a while. Do any of these qualify in some way as block heels? Why or why not? They are all right there in that 1" or 25 mm range in thickness, but none of them suffers from the traditional beef I have with block heels, and that is, one tends to clomp in them. If the heel is lower, this is not really much of a factor, but as one rises above somewhere around the 4" range, block heels tend to become ungainly to walk in. I'm all with @Jkrenzeron this one: Contrary to common thought, stilettos are much easier to walk in gracefully, if one can deal with the pitfalls of dropping one's heel into unperceived gaps in the surface.

I would not call these block heels (or even 'narrow' block heels) as they are both too slim and too tapered .   To my mind, a block heel has to have a depth (front - back) that is 2" or more and a width that is not much less than the whole width of the shoe, so likely to be 2.5" or more, and with no significant taper in its sides, back or front.   (Height is irrelevant - a 'flat' man's business shoe with a heel of around 1" or less is still a 'block' heel.)   Here is one example, at the slimmer end of the scale:

I would suggest that melrose's shoes have Spanish or Chunky heels, if those names are accepted as legitimate. 

Edited February 7, 2022 by Puffer
typo

[p1ng74]

2 hours ago, Puffer said:

I would not call these block heels (or even 'narrow' block heels) as they are both too slim and too tapered .   To my mind, a block heel has to have a depth (front - back) that is 2" or more and a width that is not much less than the whole width of the shoe, so likely to be 2.5" or more, and with no significant taper in its sides, back or front.   (Height is irrelevant - a 'flat' man's business shoe with a heel of around 1" or less is still a 'block' heel.)   Here is one example, at the slimmer end of the scale:

I would suggest that melrose's shoes have Spanish or Chunky heels, if those names are accepted as legitimate. 

Or perhaps “cone heel”

[5150PLB1]

With all of this technical engineering about shoe heels, it makes me wonder are Chrisitan Louboutin and Jimmy Choo artists masquerading as engineers or engineers masquerading as artists?

[Jkrenzer]

2 hours ago, 5150PLB1 said:

With all of this technical engineering about shoe heels, it makes me wonder are Chrisitan Louboutin and Jimmy Choo artists masquerading as engineers or engineers masquerading as artists?

Niether, high heel engineering hasn't changed since they added metal rods to the shoes. Just repeated designs over and over.

[Isolathor]

3 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

Just repeated designs over and over.

Exactly! And what should the designers do, it is hard to come up with a better design than the old classic style.

 

[Shyheels]

True, if it’s working there’s no need to fix it.

 

[Puffer]

9 hours ago, p1ng74 said:

Or perhaps “cone heel”

I don't think so - not enough taper.   These are cone heels:

[mlroseplant]

12 hours ago, Puffer said:

I would not call these block heels (or even 'narrow' block heels) as they are both too slim and too tapered .   To my mind, a block heel has to have a depth (front - back) that is 2" or more and a width that is not much less than the whole width of the shoe, so likely to be 2.5" or more, and with no significant taper in its sides, back or front.   (Height is irrelevant - a 'flat' man's business shoe with a heel of around 1" or less is still a 'block' heel.)   Here is one example, at the slimmer end of the scale:

I would suggest that melrose's shoes have Spanish or Chunky heels, if those names are accepted as legitimate. 

It may be the case that I don't actually own any block heels by this definition. I don't even think my boots count as block heels, seen on the left in photos 1 and 2. On the right are my now rather well worn Coach clogs, which I have always thought of as having block heels, even though upon careful examination they are not particularly block-y, being nearly a perfect semicircle in the back, but they are about 1 3/8" in width and depth, or about 35 mm.

While technically your definition of the shape is accurate, in other words, roughly a rectangular solid of some sort, I don't think the dimensional requirements are necessarily that rigid. A heel that is 2 1/2" or more in width would look rather elephantine on a foot of my size, though we are seeing more and more heels that are exactly that these days. No thank you. I think that perhaps, like our definition of stiletto heel, which bears little resemblance to the knife, we can be more fluid in our definition of block heel as compared to an actual block.

I suppose we could get into a discussion of visual proportion about why such a wide heel doesn't look horrible on a man's shoe of less than 1" in height, but looks rather ungainly once you get up to about 2" in height, but maybe we'll save that for another day.

10 hours ago, p1ng74 said:

Or perhaps “cone heel”

Speaking of fluidity, I am hard pressed to really find a cone shape in any of the heels pictured above. However, I picked out three pairs that I would call cone-ish. Or would that be coney? The breast (or whatever it is that they call the front of the heel) is flat like most high heeled shoes, so it's kind of like a cone with a slice cut off of it. See photos 3 and 4.

3 hours ago, Isolathor said:

Exactly! And what should the designers do, it is hard to come up with a better design than the old classic style.

 

Those are a very beautiful blue color. I think I want some. Is that a pose, or is it a freeze frame of a walk?

[Shyheels]

I would say the heels in the top images were “chunky” and those in the bottom two were “cone”.

I like the chunky heel ankle boot by the way!

[Isolathor]

1 hour ago, mlroseplant said:

Is that a pose, or is it a freeze frame of a walk?

That is a pose, and in the original picture there are 2 more ladies (but i don´t have permission to post this) doing the same "walk" in line as a tribut to the Beatles "Abbey Road" album.

[Cali]

To throw another monkey wretch into the fire, a different type of perception 

https://www.thetrendspotter.net/different-types-of-heels/

These I would call these block heels. Very little slant.  Freebird "Blaze"

Edited February 8, 2022 by Cali

[Shyheels]

I’d call those block heels too

[mlroseplant]

I don't think there is much controversy there--block heels.

22 hours ago, Shyheels said:

I would say the heels in the top images were “chunky” and those in the bottom two were “cone”.

I like the chunky heel ankle boot by the way!

You'd probably like them even more if I told you that they are actually knee high.

[Shyheels]

Indeed! Although I quite like ankle boots as well!

[bambam]

 

love the Freebird stuff. If I didn't  Already own four pairs of Frye boots, my favorite (and most expensive) boots, I would start buying some Freebird stuff...

[Pumped]

On 2/8/2022 at 10:52 AM, Cali said:

To throw another monkey wretch into the fire, a different type of perception 

https://www.thetrendspotter.net/different-types-of-heels/

 

 

I read the article, personally, I don't think Rose has any clue about heels! Not a spike or stiletto heel mentioned!

[Cali]

Here's a variety of just a few of my “chunky heels” for you all to dissect in great details. Have fun! I think one could also be labeled a block heel.

[mlroseplant]

7 hours ago, Cali said:

Here's a variety of just a few of my “chunky heels” for you all to dissect in great details. Have fun! I think one could also be labeled a block heel.

It's a little hard to tell, since we've only got the view from the side, but I would say the top two are cone-ish, and maybe even the bottom left as well. They've all got that straight taper to them, but with a flat side in front, which is definitely not part of a cone. The bottom right I have no problem calling a block heel, as there appears to be very little taper, if any.

[Puffer]

I find it difficult to accept any of these heels shown by melrose and Cali as truly being 'cone' heels simply because they have an element of taper in (at least) the side view.   They are not really even truncated cones.   Cone heels proper should surely have a more significant and even all-round taper and a tip that is typically almost stiletto-thin, such as here:

      

Those shoes above that are not clearly block heels (i.e. fairly wide and deep, with minimal taper to back or front) are surely in a category of their own - and I don't think we yet have a good name for them.

I agree with melrose that a block heel is not necessarily as wide (side-to-side) as 2.5" or more, as I previously suggested.   Clearly, its width will depend on the width of the shoe upper - it cannot be wider but will be almost as narrow at its top - and many shoes (especially in smaller women's sizes) will be narrower than 2.5" wide at the back, although many men's shoes may be as wide as about 3".   I measured the heels on these three items for width and depth and calculated the ratio between those two measurements:

My Recite ankle boots, 3.9" block heel (UK13): w 2.3"; d 1.8"; ratio w/d 1.28

My wife's ankle boots, 2.5" block heel (UK7): w 1.9"; d 2.4"; ratio w/d 0.79

My men's loafers, 1" low heel (UK12): w 2.5"; d 3.2"; ratio w/d 0.78

Obviously a small sample and not very scientific, but it seems clear from the first two ratios that there is little consistency in proportions, yet both have similar appearance.   And a typical men's 'flat' shoe has nothing like a true block heel but has a very similar ratio to a women's medium block heel!   I think the US expression is 'go figure'!

 

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by Puffer
change picture

[Cali]

@Puffer, I never  said any of the heels shown were cone, I don't own any shoes with cone heels. 

This is just a study of chunky vs. block.

Edited February 11, 2022 by Cali

[Shyheels]

I think I am as fascinated by the thought and application that has gone into this topic as I am about the design aspects of the heels themselves.

[Puffer]

4 hours ago, Cali said:

@Puffer, I never  said any of the heels shown were cone, I don't own any shoes with cone heels. 

This is just a study of chunky vs. block.

I realise that, and apologise for implying otherwise.   I was lumping together the various shoes shown by you and melrose that have similar high tapered heels and saying that I didn't consider any of them to be 'cone' heels, with which you appear to agree.   As almost any heel that is not clearly 'slim' can be called 'chunky', I have my reservations about that term - and it does make me wonder where on the spectrum a cone heel lies (chunky at the top, slim at the bottom)!