Gold platform shoes from the 70s. Photo: Alamy
"In a world ruled by ideal economic conditions... there will be no sensible shoes," 1920s shoe designer André Perugia once said. We're all wearing comfortable, sexless sneakers now, so draw your own conclusions. Luckily, history has plenty of crazy shoes on hand to keep us entertained while we wonder where all our money went.
Paleoanthropologists can tell from the feet when we started wearing shoes regularly: the toe bones became spindler about 40,000 years ago. Most of that footwear was too organic to survive. The oldest known example is a pair of wormwood bark sandals that are probably about 10,000 years old and look like something many Guardian readers would wear; while Ötzi, the iceman, had a fancier pair around 3300 BC, with a bearskin base, deerskin side panels and a bark net to draw them closed. "The thick layer of hairs provides good insulation and a soft feeling to walk on," noted a researcher who reconstructed them, which sounds like a four-star review to me.
If you've read other Shock of the Olds, you won't be surprised to learn that the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians were all about shoe technology. You can buy sandals that look like thousand-year-old Greek sandals with a toe and ankle strap, and in Tutankhamun's tomb there were beautifully decorative purple and gold 'thebets', a type of slippers.
As Tut's sandals show, almost from the beginning, shoes were more about not stepping on painful or potentially fatal things. They were a way to convey status, look bigger and more powerful, or attract a mate. Men's shoes were historically as chic as women's: "loose prodigality" Richard Sackville's 1613 portrait shows giant rosettes on his white-heeled slip-ons (Jacobean playwright John Webster joked about using "faded roses to heal your arthritic to hide ankles"). The short King Louis XIV (5 ft 4/162 cm) showed permanent eleganza in his towering red heels, which Charles II copied.
But when did shoes become sexy? The rich tapestry of human sexuality being what it is, they probably always have been. . In 1769, Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne published a full-fledged foot fetish novel, Le Pied de Franchette, after becoming aroused by a girl in pink slippers with high heels. Knowing that, Jean-Honoré Fragonard's painting The Swing - depicting a woman losing her pink heeled slipper - becomes downright nasty. (Indeed, the strangely specific dedication for it was: "I want you to paint my mistress on a swing being pushed by a bishop and show me in a position where I can see her legs and more.") Shoes were a hallmark of Victorian style. pornography, which let consumers know they were enjoying contemporary perving, rather than boring classical sculpture, and the late 19th century brought explicitly fetishized shoes, which you couldn't even stand in. The space for steel heel reinforcement saw stilettos follow in the 1950s and shoe fashion remained largely unhinged until the pandemic thankfully put us all back in slippers (one of the only upsides).
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Okay, time to start this (Dr. Scholl) party (feet). Put on the shoes.
Roman sandals
Roman caligae had studded soles, making them super sturdy and allowing for customization. Hobnails could be arranged in patterns to represent astrological symbols or even, according to a disapproving comment by Clement of Alexandria, by women to convey 'amorous embraces'. (Yes, they wore them with socks.)
Medieval pools
If we know anything grim about the Middle Ages, it's the plague and that other terrible plague: ridiculously pointy shoes. Poulaines (also known as Krakow or pikes) were not particularly well received even in their own time: they were ridiculed and vilified, considered effeminate, sexually depraved and irreligious (as they prevented you from kneeling to pray and priests were forbidden to wear them ). Someone called 'Robert the Horny' has apparently launched a fashion for padding the toes, making them look even rougher. They also gave the wearers bunions.
Chopines, circa 1590
For Venetian grandees, a woman in super high heels (the most extreme of these platform shoes reached 54 cm) was a way to show how much luxurious fabric you could afford to dress her in. This product of conspicuous consumption was highly impractical for movement, and meant that women needed escorts: a good way to reinforce patriarchal control over their movements. An alternative view of the chopine suggests that they made women resemble penises: "Chopines create a phallic image of the female form - turning her into an upright column-like structure," according to the Courtauld Institute.
Turkish qabqab, 18th century
Many early shoe designs were about dirt and its avoidance. Pattens - sturdy wooden or layered leather overshoes that were attached to ornate house shoes to prevent them from becoming soiled with the unspeakable mud that lurked outside the door - were used until the 18th century. These Turks qabqab are for hammam use: you certainly won't get plantar warts that high. Towards the end of the 18th century, the first patents for waterproof shoes were filed and clogs fell out of favor.
Manchu platform shoes, 18th century
It is still up for debate whether these high wooden platforms were meant to be practical (for walking in wet and cold Northeast China), a statement of an identity other than Han foot binding, or designed to facilitate the gait of women with bound to imitate. lotus feet. Heel shapes include "flower pot," "moon" and "horse hoof."
Tabis, 1920s
They've been battling Crocs for the most polarizing shoe crown since 1989, but tabis started innocently. Originally Japanese split-toed leather shoes made from a single animal hide, they evolved into the sometimes-soled socks you could wear with thong sandals, before rubber manufacturer Bridgestone turned them into sole-soled outdoor work boots. by Martin Margiela tribute became a new cause célèbre last year, with the heartbreaking story of the New Yorker whose Tinder date stole her tabis (she got them back, but maybe he was doing her a favor?). Podiatrists are not convinced: "I wouldn't be surprised if that type of shoe causes pain between the toes. Ingrown toenails would not be out of the question," someone told The Guardian in 2020.
Moonshiner's cow shoe, 1924
"The cow shoe is a strip of metal to which is attached a wooden block resembling a cow's hoof, which can be strapped to the human foot. A man with two shoes would leave a trail similar to that of a cow," said a 1922 newspaper report in Florida. And why would a man want to do that? The reason for this is crime: prohibitionists wore them to avoid alerting police to the location of illegal stills.
Unusual sandals, 1947
These pleasantly avant-garde numbers look a bit like folding soles, a 17th century invention to prevent people from sinking into the mud. (Fun fact: Men's protective bottom soles were left loose to make a cheeky, smacking "look at me" sound; while women's were nailed to the uppers and supported with felt to keep them still - a classic patriarchal movement.) They also look like the wearer is walking on a toilet roll, which can actually be quite comfortable.
Man on platforms, 1973
Men wore heels long before women; Persian horsemen of the 10th century used them to increase their stability in stirrups and allow them to carry heavier weapons. In the early 17th century, as trade with Persia increased, European men decided to adopt this look and when women began to adopt heels shortly afterwards, it was part of the fashion to emulate the boys (who inevitably warmed to it were placed under the collar). ). Men's heels disappeared during the Great Male Reunciation, when chaps weren't great anymore, so thank goodness glam rock leveled the playing field for foot discomfort again.
McQueen armadillo, 2010
In 2024, when even the British Prime Minister is wearing sambas, Daphne Guinness stumbling around on these McQueen monstrosities in 2009 feels as archaic as chopines or crakows. I'm a former Louboutin fan, but I'm more likely to stick my feet in a living armadillo than I am to wear them now. Is this progress? Shocking.