1920s shoe designer André Perugia once said: “In a world governed by ideal economic conditions… there will be no sensible shoes.” We’re all wearing comfortable, gender-neutral sneakers now, so draw your own conclusions. Luckily, history has plenty of silly shoes to keep us entertained while we wonder where all our money went.
By looking at our feet, paleoanthropologists can tell when we started wearing shoes regularly: Toe bones became thinner around 40,000 years ago. Many of these shoes were too organic to survive. The oldest known example is a pair of sage bark sandals, which are probably around 10,000 years old and look like something many Guardian readers would wear; Ötzi the iceman had more elegant shoes in 3300 BC; with a base of bearskin, side panels of deerskin, and a web of tree bark to cover them. A researcher who reconstructed them commented, “The thick layer of hair provides good insulation and a soft feel to walk on”; This sounds like a four star review to me.
If you’ve read Other Shock of the Ancients, you won’t be surprised to hear that the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians were very keen on shoe technology. You can buy sandals with toe and ankle straps, similar to thousands of years old Greek sandals; Tutankhamun’s tomb contains highly decorative purple and gold “stakes”, a type of flip-flops.
As Tut’s sandals show, shoes were about much more than just stepping on painful or potentially fatal things almost from the beginning. They were a way to convey status, appear bigger and more powerful, or impress a partner. Historically, men’s shoes were as ostentatious as women’s: “indecent extravagance” Richard Sackville’s 1613 portrait features huge rosettes on his white high-heeled shoes (the Jacobean playwright John Webster mocked using “over-swollen roses to hide your gouty ankles”). Short king Louis XIV (5 ft 4/162 cm) displayed enduring elegance in his high red heels, copied by Charles II.
So when did shoes become sexy? The rich tapestry of human sexuality probably always has been. . In 1769, Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne published Le Pied de Franchette, a full-blown foot fetish novel about a girl in pink high-heeled slippers after getting hot under the collar. Knowing this, Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s painting The Swing, which depicts a woman losing her pink high-heeled shoe, becomes downright dirty. (Actually, the oddly specific summary of this was: “I want you to paint my lady on a swing pushed by a bishop, and show me in a position where I can see her legs and more.”) Shoes were a feature of the Victorian era. Pornography signaled to consumers that they enjoyed contemporary perversions rather than boring classical statues, and the late 19th century brought openly fetish footwear so impossible to even stand on. The extent of steel heel reinforcement meant that stilettos followed well into the 1950s, and shoe fashion remained largely uneven. until, thankfully, the pandemic turned us all into slippers again (one of the only upsides to this).
Okay, time to get this (Dr Scholl) Party (Feet) started. Bring the shoes.
roman sandals
Rome caligae They had cabana soles, making them super sturdy and allowing for customization. Kabanas may be arranged to represent astrological symbols or even, according to a disapproving interpretation by Clement of Alexandria, to express “loving embraces” by women. (Yes, they wore it with socks.)
medieval poulains
If we know one bad thing about the Middle Ages, it’s the plague and other terrible scourges: ridiculously pointy shoes. poulains (Also known as Krakows or spears) were not well received even in their own day: they were mocked and despised, considered effeminate, sexually immoral and impious (as they prevented you from kneeling to pray and priests were forbidden to wear them). Apparently someone named “Horny Robert” started a fad to stuff her toes and make them look even meaner. They also gave users bunions.
Chopins, c1590
For Venetian nobles, a wife in a super-high dress (the tip of these platform shoes reached 54cm) was a way to show off how much fancy fabric you could get to dress her. This meant that women needed companions: a good way to reinforce patriarchal control over their movements. An alternative take on Chopines suggests that they make women resemble penises: “Chopines create a phallic image of the female form – transforming it into an upright, column-like structure,” according to the Courtauld Institute.
Turkish kabab, 18th century
Many of his early shoe designs were about dirt and avoiding it. Pattens—sturdy wooden or layered leather overshoes laced over elegant house shoes to prevent them from becoming dirty with the indescribable mud lurking outside your door—were used until the 18th century. These are Turkish kabab for bath use: you definitely won’t get warts this high up. In the late 18th century, the first patents for waterproof shoes were filed, and patents fell out of favor.
Manchu platform shoes, 18th century
It is still open to debate whether these high wooden platforms were practical (for walking in the wet and cold region of northeast China), a statement of identity distinct from Han footbinding, or designed to imitate the gait of bound women. lotus” feet. Heel shapes included “pot,” “moon” and “horse hoof.”
Of course, 1920s
They’ve battled Crocs for the most polarizing shoe crown since 1989, but Tabis started off innocuously. Originally made from a single piece of animal skin, Japanese leather shoes evolved into socks with soles that you could sometimes wear with thong sandals, before tire manufacturer Bridgestone transformed them into outdoor work shoes with soles. Martin Margiela respect Last year, it became a new cause célèbre with the heartbreaking story of the New Yorker who stole her Tinder date tabis (she took them back but was she probably doing him a favor?). Podiatrists are not convinced: “I wouldn’t be surprised if this type of shoe caused pain between the toes. Ingrown toenails are out of the question,” one told the Guardian in 2020.
Moonshiner’s cow shoe, 1924
“A cow shoe is a metal strip to which a wooden block carved to resemble a cow’s hoof is attached, which can be tied to a human foot. According to a 1922 Florida newspaper report, a man wearing shoes with a pair of shoes would leave a mark similar to that of a cow. So why would a man want to do this? Reason for the crime: Illegal drinkers are prohibited from wearing them so as not to alert the police to the location of illegal photographs.
Unusual sandals, 1947
These delightfully avant-garde tricks resemble slap soles, a 17th-century invention to prevent people from getting stuck in mud. (Fun fact: Men’s protective bottom soles were left loose to make a perky, slapping, “look at me” sound; women’s were nailed to the top and backed with felt to keep them quiet—a classic move of patriarchy.) They also look as if the wearer were walking on toilet paper, which can actually be quite comfortable.
Man on platforms, 1973
Men wore high heels long before women; Persian horsemen in the 10th century used high-heeled shoes to increase stability in the stirrups and allow them to carry heavier weapons. At the beginning of the 17th century, as trade with Persia picked up, European men decided to adopt this look, and soon as women began wearing heels, it became part of a fashion to imitate men (who inevitably became enraged about it). ). During Giving Up on the Big Man, when guys stopped being gorgeous, men’s heels disappeared, so thank goodness for glam rock, which once again leveled foot discomfort on the playing field.
McQueen Armadillo, 2010
In 2024, when even the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom wears Sambas, Daphne Guinness hobbling around on 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 in a live armadillo than wear one right now. Is this progress? Shocking.