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Styles change, but heels are forever
Once upon a time, the height of a shoe's heel showed a person’s rank in society. Today, the brand name written on the shoe is the status symbol.
By Melanie Herschorn
The L.A. Pilot
Aristocratic women hired cobblers to design their shoes. This illustration depicts a shoe fitting, circa 1600.
Photo: costumes.org
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Just as the celebration of art and the classics began after the dark ages, so did the creation of fashionable footwear. The Italian Renaissance ushered in the idea that aesthetics are important, and high fashion shoes became a significant part of the upper class woman’s wardrobe.
Early modern women even took an active role in their shoe design.
“They were completely involved in the process of their appearance,” says costume historian Kevin Jones of the Los Angeles-based Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising.
“There were no shoe designers the way we know them today. You had a cobbler come to town, he would measure your feet. You would be choosing the silks, the types of trimmings and embroideries, how tall that heel was you would want on your shoes.”
In this time period, high-heeled shoes became fashionable. Women would dress in footwear called chopines - shoes that could be as high as 23 inches.
“Chopines were covered in embroidery, solid gold laces, and incredible punched leather work. These were very much luxury items,” Jones says.
High-heeled evolution
“Heels have stayed in fashion pretty much ever since,” says Jones.
By the 18th century, women no longer designed their own footwear. Instead, fashion plates became available and women began to follow somebody else’s lead in choosing fashions.
And in the 19th century, couture houses were established, so that women could order designs from a seasonal collection of clothing and shoes that someone else had created.
The next significant event in the history of shoes was the introduction of open-toed sandals into footwear fashion in the 1920s.
“It happened in Italy and in Hollywood because of Salvatore Ferragamo, the famous shoe designer,” Jones says. “He came out here to do shoes for the movies and for movie stars. Our weather here is so similar to weather in Italy in the Mediterranean...sandals could be worn year-round.”
Ferragamo enabled sling-back and open-toed shoes to become an integral part of the fashionable market. He also introduced the modern-day stiletto in the late 1940s.
“One of the people who was particularly interested in the stiletto was Marilyn Monroe. It is thought that she developed her famous wiggle because of the stiletto shoes that Ferragamo actually made for her,” Jones explains.
Monroe’s sex symbol status caused stilettos to be coveted by women everywhere.
“If your husband thinks that’s attractive, you’re going to put on something that’s similar to be in fashion and to find that sex appeal,” says Jones.
That rang true 500 years ago, and it still rings true today. |
