29.10.09

Why Do Women Wear These Crazy High Heels?

If you think high heels were invented for women, you should know that they actually started with men.According to the curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, shoes with a pointed heel and a sloping pitch were first worn by men as riding boots in 9th-century Persia.
During the Renaissance period, women wore high platforms stacked heavily at the toe called chopines. They were said to rise about eight inches high and were worn in the sheer delight of displaying family wealth. These chopines later became a trend to prostitutes in Florence and Sicily.
In the 1500s, the high-heeled men's riding boot was revived by Queen Elizabeth who "acted" as a man.
In the early 1700s, shorter heels started to become popular with women.
By the time of the Second World War, heels started soaring higher with the discovery of using metal rods on shoes to maintain a strong and narrow structure.
Today, heels just keep on evolving as they get higher and more pointed or rounded, according to the crazy trend that echoed their history of glamour, power, oppression, sexiness, and contradiction to accepted morality.

1 comment:

  1. it doesn't suprise me that men would want to wear heels they always want to feel superior! My boots are made for riding and that's where i think the whole heel thing started from needing to grip the stirrups properly and then became fashionable and extreme. every now and then riding wear has an innovation that takes in the main stream fashion like lycra.

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