High-Heeled Shoes

INTRODUCTION:
“Give a girl the right shoe and she can conquer the world” –Marilyn Monroe

Shoes in general have typically served as markers of gender, class, race, and ethnicity. No other shoe, however, has gestured toward leisure, sexuality, and sophistication as much as the high-heeled shoe. Often the last piece of an ensemble or the final detail to be added to an outfit, the high-heel is a wardrobe staple that has come a long way! The high-heel has transformed from a measure of class and wealth, to a serious fashion statement.

ANCIENT TIMES:
Egyptian murals tell us that butchers were the originators of high heels, using them to walk through scores of dead animals without getting insides on their outsides.

Most of the lower class in ancient Egypt walked barefoot, but from figures on murals dating from 3500 B.C. illustrations of both upper-class males and females are seen wearing heels, probably for ceremonial purposes.

Greece and Rome, platform sandals called kothorni, later known as buskinsin during the Renaissance, were shoes with high wood or cork soles that were popular particularly among actors who would wear shoes of different heights to indicated varying social status or importance of characters. In ancient Rome, sex trade was not illegal and female prostitutes were identified by their high heels (Wilson 2005).

HIGH-HEELS IN FASHION:
High heels as we know them today were actually brought into the mainstream in the 16th century, when Catherine de Medici, merely five feet, was to marry her much taller husband Henry II. The bride-to-be worked with a local cobbler to fashion the shoes to give her a 2” boost.

Catherine’s heels were a wild success and soon high heels were associated with privilege. By 1580, fashionable heels were popular for both sexes, and a person who had authority or wealth was often referred to as