by “In a world governed by ideal economic conditions … there will be no sensible shoes,” André Perugia, a 1920s shoe designer, once said. We’re all wearing comfy, sexless trainers now, so draw your own conclusions. Fortunately, history has plenty of silly footwear on hand to distract us, wondering where all our money went.
Paleoanthropologists can tell when we started wearing shoes regularly by looking at the feet: toe bones became less than 40,000 years ago. Most of that footwear was too organic to survive. The oldest known example is a pair of sagebrush bark sandals that are probably around 10,000 years old and look like something many Guardian readers would have worn; and Ötzi the iceman had a pair of chic-ers in 3300-ish BC, with shearling skin soles, deerskin side panels, and bark string netting to pull them closed. “The thick layer of hairs provides good insulation and a soft feel to walk on,” said a researcher who recreated them, giving me a four-star review.
If you’ve read another Shock of the ancients, you won’t be surprised to hear that the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians were all over shoe technology. You can buy sandals that look like thousands of years old Greek ones with a toe and ankle strap, and in Tutankhamun’s tomb there were ornate purple and gold “thebets”, a sort of flip-flop.
As Tut’s sandals show, shoes were about more than treading on painful or potentially deadly things almost from the beginning. They were a way to express status, look bigger and more powerful, or to attract a friend. Men’s shoes were as nice as women’s shoes, historically: “licentious spending” In a 1613 portrait of Richard Sackville there are giant roses on his white heels (the soap opera John Webster had fun using “blown roses to to hide your gouty ankles”). The short king Louis XIV (5 ft 4/162cm) showed a permanent eleganza in his high red heels, which Charles II copied.
But when got sexy shoes? The rich tapestry of human sexuality as it is, they probably always have been. . In 1769, Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne published a full-blown foot fetish novel, Le Pied de Franchette, after he got hot under the collar of a girl in high-heeled pink slippers. Knowing this, Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s painting The Swing – with its depiction of a woman losing her pink heeled slippers – becomes positively dirty. (Indeed it was the odd brief: “I want you to paint my mistress on a swing being pushed by a bishop and show me where I can see her legs and more.”) It was a feature of the Victorian era. shoes are pornography, informing consumers that they were enjoying contemporary perving, rather than boring classical sculpture, and in the late 19th century fetishy shoes became manifest, impossible even to stand in. The scope for steel heel reinforcement meant stilettos followed in the 1950s and shoe fashions remained more or less stagnant. until, mercifully, the Pandemic put us all back into slippers (one of its only benefits).
Okay, it’s time to start this (Dr. Scholl) Party (Feet). Bring the shoes.
Roman sandals
Roman Calige they had spiked bases, which made them extremely strong and allowed them to be personalized. Vestments could be arranged in patterns to represent astrological symbols or even, according to the incredulous remark of Clement of Alexandria, by women to indicate “ugly coverings”. (Yes, they wore them with socks.)
Medieval police
If we know anything grim about the middle ages, it’s the plague and that other terrible scourge – ridiculously pointy shoes. Pollinates (called cracks or pike) that were not very welcome even in their day: they were ridiculed and ridiculed, they were considered vulgar, sexual and irreligious (because they stopped you on your knees to pray and priests were forbidden to wear them ). Apparently someone called “Robert the Horny” launched a fashion to fill the toes, which made them look worse. They gave bunions to wearers, too.
Chopines, c 1590
For the Venetian nobility, a wife in a super high heel (most of these platform shoes reached 54cm) was a way to show how much fancy fabric you could afford to dress her. This product of conspicuous consumption was very practical for getting around, and that meant that women needed caps: a good way to reinforce patriarchal control over their movements. Another view of the chopine suggests that they made women look like pens: “Chopines create a phallic image of the female form – transforming her into an upright columnar structure,” according to the Courtauld Institute.
Turkish qabqab, 18th century
Many early shoe designs were about filth, and its avoidance. Patents – sturdy wooden or layered leather wings affixed to smooth indoor shoes to avoid soiling them with the unspeakable slurry outside your door – were used until the 18th century. of this Turkey qabqab which is for hammam use: you would certainly not find a verruca that was high. By the end of the 18th century, the first patents were filed for waterproof shoes, and pattens fell out of favor.
Manchu platform shoes, 18th century
Whether these high wooden platforms were intended to be practical (for walking in the wet and cold northeast China), an assertion of identity separate from Han foot binding, or designed to imitate women’s walking is still up for debate. bind “lotus” feet. Heel shapes included “flower pot”, “moon” and “horse hoof”.
Tabas, 1920s
They fought Crocs for the most polarizing footwear crown since 1989, but tabis started out innocuously. Originally Japanese leather split boots made from a single animal hide, they evolved into the sometimes solid socks you could wear with thong sandals, before rubber manufacturer Bridgestone turned them into solid outdoor work shoes. Martin Margiela on tribute Last year’s fresh cause was celebrated, with the heartwarming story of a New Yorker whose Tinder stole her tabis (she got them back, but it could be argued that he was doing her a favor?). Podiatrists are not sure: “I would not be surprised if that type of shoe caused pain between the toes. Ingrown nails would not be out of the question,” one of them told the Guardian in 2020.
Moonshiner cowboy boot, 1924
“The cow shoe is a strip of metal with a block of wood carved to resemble a cow’s hooves, which may be attached to a human foot. A man who had a pair of them would leave a cow-like footprint,” according to a 1922 Florida newspaper report. And why would a man want to do that? This is the reason for the crime: the white men wore bans so that they would not be informed about the presence of illegal teams.
Unusual sandals, 1947
These charming avant garde numbers look a bit like slap tires, a 17th century invention to stop people sinking in the mud. (Fun fact: the men’s protective bottoms were left loose to make a sassy, slapping, “look at me” noise; while the women’s were nailed to the upper and backed with felt to keep them quiet – a classic patriarchy move .) They also look as if the person is walking on a loo roll, which can be quite comfortable.
Man in terraces, 1973
Men wore heels long before women – 10th century Persian marksmen used them to increase their stability in stirrups and allow them to carry heavier weapons. At the beginning of the 17th century, as trade with Persia grew, European men decided to get the look and when women soon adopted heels, it was part of the fashion to imitate the boys (who ‘be sure to get under the collar about it. ). Men’s heels disappeared during the Great Male Abandonment, when men stopped being cool, so thank goodness glam rock leveled the foot discomfort playing field again.
McQueen Armadillo, 2010
In the year 2024, when even the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom wears Sambas, Daphne Guinness, sporting these McQueen monsters in 2009 feels as archaic as chopines or crakows. I’m a former Louboutin fan, but I’d rather stick my feet into a live armadillo than wear them now. Is this progress? Shocking.
