In the history of high heels

[Amanda]

I'm sure there have been many historical turning points, landmarks and interesting scientific and social/anthropological aspects.

Which ones do you find interesting, amusing, sexy or repuslive, etc?.

Please write something about it.

If you feel that your English is not very good then

Perhaps you could provide a link to an appropriate website?.

(This post was inspired by demoniaplatforms)

Have fun

Amanda xx

[t-strap lover]

I believe the turning point in history for myself was when I started wearing highheels and liking it. the world for me has not changed since. What a wonderful way to feel.

[raymond.nl]

For light reading on high heeled shoes and all that goes with it I'd start with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-heel_shoe

[kneehighs]

For me, an interesting historical turning point occurred around WWII

Right after WWII women wanted something different from the heavy and square fashions of the 1940's. Ferragamo himself deplored the typical 1940's shoe as "heavy [and] graceless...with points shaped like potatoes and heels like lead." Diana Vreeland (1906-1989) the reputable editor of VOGUE also remembered shoes of that decade with passionate disregard:

Everyone was in wooden shoes, clack, clack, clack. You could tell the time of the day by the sound of the wooden soles on the pavement. If there was a great storm of them, it meant that it was lunch hour and people were leaving their offices for the restaurants. Then there would be another great clatter when they returned.

Caroline Cox, in her book, Stiletto elaborates more:

"the chunkiness of the 1940's shoe was also due to the limited technology, which meant that the verticality of its heel was constrained. Heels were made of a central core of wood which was then covered with leather and precluded any degreee of taper--the thinner the wooden heel, the greater more likelihood there was of breakage. This, together with a puritan streak that had, of necessity, entered fashion owing to the rigors of war, meant that glamour and ornament were eschewed in favor of comfort and practicality. A sensible, hard wearing wool suit was the order of the day for a woman who had to cope with the rigors of rationing -- an economy of dress to reflect the economy brought to bear on her domestic life."

Another excerpt from Cox's book shows how the sterotype of heel=feminine is economically rooted:

"As journalist Ann Scott-James put it in her book In the Mink, 'As the last guns rumbled and the last all-clear sounded, all the squalor and discomfort and roughness that had seemed fitting for so long began to feel old fashioned.....'..."By 1948 the British trade magazine FOOTWEAR had declared, "The heavy, bulky shoe is definitely OUT." Shoe manufacturers realized that they needed to respond rapidly to the new decade of affluence by making a shoe that could stimulate demand after the wartime stagnation of fashion, creating a whole new generation of female consumers. Women wanted new ideas and new looks after the gloom and rationing of the 1940's. The race was on -- who could create an elegant, modernist shoe, one fitting for a new age and the expectations women had of fashion that had lain dormnat for so long."

Basically, women had to be the major caretakers of the home during WWII when men were away at the war. Invented in the 1950's by Italian shoemakers, the spindle-heeled stiletto was assertively modern, releasing women from the utilitarian fashions of the wartime 1940's and launching them into a modern era of fashionable consumption.

Anthropologist Margaret Visser (The Way We Are, 1997) wrote, "their first purpose was to raise the owners, enable them to pose impressively, and strech their legs..."

It appears to me that the thought that a heel -- even a stiletto heel -- is exclusively for use by females is rooted in a socially and economically constructed stereotype that began after World War II.

[crotchboots-m]

i find it ironic that boots started out as a male only province only to somehow be spirited away into the female camp. just goes to show that if dont use it,you will lose it.

[roniheels]

I believe I replied in a similar post that high heels worn by men go back as far as the French Revolution, even the American Revolution, cowboy boots always had higher heels for their feet in the stirups in the old west, and the great 70's disco era wear many men and women wore platform shoes, boots, and high heels. I was facinated by high heels that my Mom wore and decided one day I would wear high heels daily.

[thedesigner]

like fashion generally.... in the 18th century (ish) men were the peacocks, like in the animal world, and the most striking would get the best chance.... I like anyone who makes an effort to make a statement and uses their imagination, it shows creativity, which is important to me. I use design creatively for a living and like it to show as an advert when i meet people. So many people seem to have lost self confidence to step out...