History of the High Heel

The Heel: the back part of a shoe or boot that touches the ground and provides elevation.


The Chopines Heel 200 B.C.

High heels have been around for a long time, they have been serving similar purposed for men and woman since 4000 B.C.  In the ancient Greece and Rome, platform sandal called “Kothomi”, later know as "buskinsin" to the Renaissance.

During the High Renaissance of the sixteenth century, fashionable, wealthy women in Venice, Italy, eagerly climbed into Chopines (sha-PEENS), shoes.  Tall wooden or cork platform soles, some consider the first clothing fad. Created in Turkey the Chopines stood seven to eight or even 30 inches high.  Women used canes to help them walk about, this was a symbol of status revealing wealth and social standing for women.
 
Chopines ranged from six to twenty-four inches in height. The tops of chopines were rarely seen; the shoes were more valued for their height and for the dainty stride they required of wearers.  Feet were secured to the pedestals with straps of leather or uppers made of silk or other fabric.
Women who wore chopines needed the support of their husbands or maids to hobble the streets and royal courts of Venice. By the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, French Spanish, and Swiss women were also teetering fashionably on chopines.  Worn by actors on Greek stages in early history may have been one of the inspirations for chopines. 







High “Louis” Heel 1660

By the time 1500 heels were made in two pieces a flexible upper attached to a heavier stiffer sole,  the heel was now a actual part of the shoe other than the attachable overshoe.  Now popular by and associated with privilege.  In 1660 French shoemaker Nicholas Lestage, so artful at his trade that some accuse him of black magic, becoming a shoemaker to Louis XIV.  

During the 17th century, King Louis XIV of France, stood 5 feet 3 inches tall,  had shoes made to increase his height. His court were allowed to wear red coloured heels at Versailles epitomized a period renowned for exorbitant trends in fashion. Red was a luxury and a precious commodity in 17th-century France; the dye was made from a small beetle, found only on the Mexican cactus. Few of his heels were decorated with miniature battle scenes, and as tall as five inches.  The trend caught on, and were fashionable for ladies. By the 1790 the heel disappeared with the revolution when Napoleon banished high heels to show equality.








The Stiletto Heels 1906

The word stiletto is derived from stylus, meaning a pin or stalk and named and inspired after a dagger. Stiletto heels are thin high heel and were surely around in the late 1800s in Italian. The design of the stiletto heel primitively came from the late Kristin S. Wagner did not become popular until the late 1950s. It was Andre Perugia who began designing shoes in 1906, was the first firmly documented designer of the stiletto heel.

Stiletto heels varied in length from 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) to 20 cm (8 inches)or more if a platform sole is used, and are sometimes defined as having a diameter at the ground of less than 1 cm (slightly less than half an inch). The stiletto came in styles such as the Italian-style stiletto heels early in 1960s and were no more than 5mm in diameter for much of their length.

After their demise in the mid-late 1960s, such slender heels were difficult to find until recently due to changes in the way heels were mass-produced. However, no other plastic heel with internal metal tube can hope to achieve the slender line or strength of a metal-stemmed stiletto, so it was only a matter of time before popular opinion and the demands of shoe designers brought back the manufacture of genuine stiletto heels.







Wedge Heels 1970

The Ancient Greek theater and their similar use by high-born prostitutes or courtesans in Venice in the 16th Century, platform shoes are thought to have been worn in Europe in the 18th century to avoid the muck of urban streets. a wedge heel runs under the foot, from the back of the shoe to the middle or front triangular, wedge shape, but not all wedges are high heels. In fact, wedge heels range from low to high, it's the shape and the length of the heel that classify it as a wedge. They have been worn in various cultures since ancient times for fashion or for added height. Often made with boots, or sandals with thick soles, often made of cork, plastic, rubber, or wood (wooden-soled platform shoes are technically also clogs.

Platform were popular in the United States, Europe and the UK in the 1930s, 1940s, and the early 1950s. When the biggest, and most prolonged, platform shoe fad in 1970s and 1980's, the U.S. history for platforms began in the early 1970. When the Vietnam War wound down in the early 1970’s, financial recession and energy shortages had emerged.







Designer Heel Today

Todays heels are made of raw materials from the manufacture of high heels are: animal hides, leather,wood, fabric, paper, plastic, and assorted cements and glues, depending on the component materials. The heel is intacted by tacks and screw nails used to bind fabric or leather to bind heels to the body part of the shoe. They are fed into a 20-ton (18-metric-ton) press that has been equipped with one, if metal dies are used to cut the pieces, such as leather (or other material). Materials are decorate, a heel will be made with faux pearls, tree branches, fabric and feathers. However, sometimes heels are made out of plastic and covered with materials to compliment the shoes uppers.

As of 1990 the designer have an image or style to transfer, a particular choice of materials, and the master shoemaker tells the designer what can be made or what production limitations are involved in the design. The millennium high fashions designers, adding art deco for inspiration behind the shoes heels. The Parda Flower-Heel “Mary Jane” is a mixter of multicolor upper. Brands became special importance among young people and many celebrities established their own lines of clothing or shoes.
In the early '00s heels saw a continuation of the minimalist looks that, designers began to adopt a more excessive, colorful, feminine, and 'anti-modern' look. The Art in general looked to for inspiration, more than past decades. Mid-late 2007 became exceedingly popular and fashion designers want to copy bygone styles in their clothing and shoes collections.