Enska 2013
Why Did Men Stop Wearing High Heels?
For generations they have signified femininity and glamour - but a pair of high heels was once an essential accessory for men.
Beautiful, provocative, sexy - high heels may be all these things and more, but even their most ardent fans wouldn’t claim they were practical.
They’re no good for hiking or driving. They get stuck in things. Women in heels are advised to stay off the grass - and also ice, cobbled streets and posh floors.
And high heels don’t tend to be very comfortable. It is almost as though they just weren’t designed for walking in. Originally, they weren’t.
“The high heel was worn for centuries throughout the near east as a form of riding footwear,” says Elizabeth Semmel of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.
Good horsemanship was essential to the fighting styles of the Persia - the historical name for modern-day Iran.
“When the soldier stood up in his stirrups, the heel helped him to secure his stance so that he could shoot his bow and arrow more effectively,” says Semmel.
At the end of the 16th Century, Shah Abbas the 1st of Persia had the largest army in the world. He was keen to forge links with rulers in Western Europe to help him defeat his great enemy, the Turkish Empire. So in 1599, Shah Abbas sent the first Persian diplomatic mission to Europe - it called on the courts of Russia, Norway, Germany and Spain.
A wave of interest in all things Persian passed through Western Europe. Persian style shoes were enthusiastically adopted by aristocrats, who sought to give their appearance a virile, masculine edge that, it suddenly seemed, only heeled shoes could supply.
As the wearing of heels filtered into the lower ranks of society, the aristocracy responded by dramatically increasing the height of their shoes - and the high heel was born. In the muddy, rutted streets of 17th Century Europe, these new shoes had no utility value whatsoever - but that was the point.
“One of the best ways that status can be conveyed is through impracticality,” says Semmel, adding that the upper classes have always used impractical, uncomfortable and luxurious clothing to announce their privileged status.
“They aren’t in the fields working and they don’t have to walk far.”
Although Europeans were first attracted to heels because the Persian connection gave them a macho air, a craze in women’s fashion for adopting elements of men’s dress meant their use soon spread to women.
“In the 1630s you had women cutting their hair, adding decoration to their outfits,” says Semmel. “They would smoke pipes, they would wear hats that were very masculine. And this is why women adopted the heel - it was in an effort to masculinise their outfits.”
Fast forward a few more years and the intellectual movement - the Enlightenment - brought with it a new respect for the rational and useful and an emphasis on education rather than privilege. Men’s fashion shifted towards more practical clothing. In England, aristocrats began to wear simplified clothes that were linked to their work managing country estates.
It was the beginning of what has been called the Great Male Renunciation, which would see men abandon the wearing of jewellery, bright colours in favour of a dark and more sober look. Men’s clothing no longer operated so clearly as a signifier of social class, but while these boundaries were being blurred, the differences between the sexes became more pronounced.
“Women, in contrast, were seen as emotional, sentimental and uneducable. Female desirability begins to be constructed in terms of irrational fashion and the high heel - once separated from its original function of horseback riding - becomes a primary example of impractical dress.”
High heels were seen as foolish and womanish. By 1740 men had stopped wearing them altogether. But it was only 50 years before they disappeared from women’s feet too, falling out of favour after the French Revolution.
“There is no reason”, Semmel believes, “why the high heel cannot continue to be ascribed new meanings - although we may have to wait for true gender equality first. If it becomes a signifier of actual power, then men will be as willing to wear
it as women.”
