In fact, men wore the shoes first, and for hundreds of years the only women who ever<\/em> wore elevated heels were courtesans<\/a>. So how did the shoes eventually end up in practically every woman\u2019s closet?<\/p>\n Murals from this ancient period depict nobility of both genders wearing heeled footwear, which literally elevated their wearers from the lower classes, who would normally be barefoot. In some professions, however, the choice in footwear stemmed not from a desire for social differentiation, but matters of practical concern: butchers, for instance, would wear heels so that they could avoid coming into contact with bloody animal carcasses.<\/p>\n During Ancient Roman times, cork platform sandals called buskins were used as an aide in theatrical productions: as with the ancient Egyptians, the platforms were worn by actors to convey their characters\u2019 class differences to the audience. The shoes were also used to identify prostitutes, and thus the footwear became associated with prostitution in these societies.<\/p>\n By the 15th century, heels were already popular among male Persian equestrians. \u201cWhen the soldier stood up in his stirrups,\u201d said<\/a> Bata Shoe Museum curator Elizabeth Semmelhack, \u201cthe heel helped to secure his stance so that he could shoot his bow and arrow more easily.\u201d<\/p>\n When the Persians arrived in Europe, they found a public eager to adopt their footwear. Not only did the shoes aid in warfare, they were practical: heel-wearers were less likely to step in street grime than their non-heeled counterparts.<\/p>\n Given equestrian sports\u2019 association with the upper class, European male elites \u2014 regardless of their affinity for horse riding \u2014 began to wear the heels as well. These men liked that heeled footwear made them tall, and therefore more imposing.<\/p>\n Likewise, the women who regularly and intimately interacted with these men \u2014 such as courtesans \u2014 began to mirror their male counterparts\u2019 apparel as a way to signal their social status to others. Thus the heel, then a symbol of powerful masculinity, became a women\u2019s accessory as well.<\/p>\n Donning these heavily symbolic accessories, courtesans during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries were essentially \u201celevated\u201d from a common woman\u2019s status and afforded many of the same privileges as men, such as the ability to enter libraries. All the while, these women took their heels to new heights: the shoes they wore<\/a>, called chopines, could be up to 18 inches tall. These uber-heels were mostly made of wood or cork, but some styles were banded with metal.<\/p>\n If these shoes seem impossible to walk in, that\u2019s because they were: in fact, one of the only reasons that these women could<\/em> wear these shoes was because they did so almost always in the company of a man they were escorting, using him for balance. If a client wasn\u2019t available, she could have five or six of her male servants prop her up.<\/p>\n By the 18th century, the heel\u2019s popularity had begun to decline. This was a turbulent time, rife with political revolutions, and the shoe\u2019s potential to suggest class division was soon regarded as a bad thing. As historian Jennifer Wright noted<\/a>, \u201cThe French revolution came. Democracy became fashionable and it started to seem unfashionable for anyone to tower over anyone else due to their social station.\u201d<\/p>\n As the Victorian and Edwardian eras came, men began to regard the shoes as \u201cimpractical,\u201d a trait that was \u2014 at a time when women were commonly and intensely regarded as physically and emotionally weak, frail and often hysterical<\/a> \u2014 associated with women. Heels became gendered, and men abandoned them for more \u201cpractical\u201d footwear.<\/p>\n Heeled footwear for women continued to evolve, though, with the first high heel manufacturing company opening in New York in 1888. Over the next several decades, particularly through wartime, \u201cimpracticality\u201d led not to the heel\u2019s abandonment, but its use by women of wealth, with heels once more an acceptable symbol of class and status. \u201cOne of the best ways that status can be conveyed is through impracticality,\u201d Semmelhack<\/a> said.<\/p>\n Heels thus influenced 20th century cultural ideals about the female form: the aesthetic effect of stiletto heels on a woman\u2019s legs became synonymous with pornography<\/a>, and after WWII, the pinup look made its way into street style, with high heeled shoes becoming a common look for women across most socioeconomic backgrounds, whether at home or in the workplace.<\/p>\n For old Hollywood starlets and pinups, the stiletto heel (named for the stiletto knife<\/a>) became the totem of femininity. Brought into fashion in 1953, the shoe was first designed by Roger Vivier<\/a>, whose heel he called \u201cthe needle.\u201d (Fun aside: Legend has it that Marilyn Monroe shaved a quarter inch off one of her stilettos so that she\u2019d walk with a more pronounced wiggle of her hips.)<\/p>\n As the heel became an essential part of a woman\u2019s daily wardrobe, smaller, more manageable heels and pumps became commonplace. The 1960s saw the advent of the \u201ckitten heel,\u201d which could be worn even for tasks at home, like cooking and laundry.<\/p>\n The 1970s brought about the stiletto\u2019s chunkier counterpart, the platform shoe, fashion\u2019s response to the growing popularity of disco, which demanded that a woman be able to dance for long periods of time.<\/p>\n The 1980s and 1990s saw a resurgence of the stiletto as a feminist statement of power (paired often with sky-high hair and shoulder-padded power suits). Christian Louboutin became famous for his red-bottomed heels during this time and high heels became a fashion industry unto themselves, a trend that carries through to the present day \u2014 but only for women.<\/p>\n However, knowing that heels have a rich history with women and<\/em> men, one does have to wonder if they will ever become fashionable for both genders again. Semmelheck doesn\u2019t see why not. \u201cIf it becomes a signifier of actual power,\u201d Semmelheck says<\/a>, \u201cthen men will be as willing to wear it as women.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" About 72 percent of women will wear high heels at some point in their lives. While these shoes have become something of a metonym for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,83],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8860"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8868,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8860\/revisions\/8868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}High Heels History: Ancient Egypt<\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/heels.jpg\")
<\/a>Ancient Greece And Rome<\/h2>\n
![\"](\"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/buskins.jpg\")
<\/a>The Renaissance And Beyond<\/h2>\n
![\"King](\"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/louis-xiv.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"A](\"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/chopine.jpeg\")
<\/a>High Heels History: Heading Toward Modernity<\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/slingbacks.jpg\")
<\/a>