1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:06,520 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey 2 00:00:06,559 --> 00:00:10,639 Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren boge obam here. Although these days wearing 3 00:00:10,680 --> 00:00:14,400 Speaker 1: shoes with high heels is mostly coded feminine, the original 4 00:00:14,400 --> 00:00:19,320 Speaker 1: wears of high heels were men. So what's the history here? When, where, 5 00:00:19,360 --> 00:00:22,840 Speaker 1: and why did people first begin wearing shoes with elevated heels. 6 00:00:23,880 --> 00:00:27,360 Speaker 1: We spoke via email with Elizabeth Semmelhawk, senior curator at 7 00:00:27,360 --> 00:00:31,320 Speaker 1: Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum, who says she has yet to 8 00:00:31,400 --> 00:00:35,080 Speaker 1: unravel this mystery. The exact origin of high heels remains 9 00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:38,400 Speaker 1: to be discovered. What's clear, however, is that high heels 10 00:00:38,479 --> 00:00:42,000 Speaker 1: were not a European invention. Heeled footwear only emerged in 11 00:00:42,040 --> 00:00:44,640 Speaker 1: Western Europe around the turn of the seventeenth century, but 12 00:00:44,720 --> 00:00:48,160 Speaker 1: had been warned for hundreds of years prior throughout Western Asia. 13 00:00:48,560 --> 00:00:52,280 Speaker 1: Similhawks said evidence for early Western Asian heels as far 14 00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:55,680 Speaker 1: back as tenth century Persia suggests a strong relationship to 15 00:00:55,720 --> 00:00:58,160 Speaker 1: horseback riding and may have been connected to the innovation 16 00:00:58,240 --> 00:01:01,360 Speaker 1: of the stirrup. The store Up family changed horseback riding 17 00:01:01,360 --> 00:01:04,679 Speaker 1: and in particular made military campaigns on horseback more effective, 18 00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:08,120 Speaker 1: as it enabled riders to study themselves and dramatically improved 19 00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:10,400 Speaker 1: the effective use of weapons such as the lance and 20 00:01:10,400 --> 00:01:12,800 Speaker 1: bow and arrow. The heel seems to have been a 21 00:01:12,840 --> 00:01:15,679 Speaker 1: further development of this technology, as it allowed the wearer 22 00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:17,920 Speaker 1: to hook his feet in the stirrups that are anchoring 23 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:22,959 Speaker 1: him to his steed. Eventually, healed footwear for men spread 24 00:01:22,959 --> 00:01:26,399 Speaker 1: to Europe, likely through political networks and trade, but the 25 00:01:26,440 --> 00:01:30,320 Speaker 1: exact evolution is complicated. So why did heel's only become 26 00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:33,440 Speaker 1: of interest to Europeans around the beginning of the sixteen hundreds, 27 00:01:34,120 --> 00:01:37,240 Speaker 1: Semmelhack said The answer lies in things as complex as 28 00:01:37,240 --> 00:01:40,720 Speaker 1: European world exploration and the destabilizing of the textile trade, 29 00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:43,080 Speaker 1: to the rise of Persia under the reign of shah 30 00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:46,800 Speaker 1: Abbus the first from fight to sixteen twenty nine, and 31 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:51,080 Speaker 1: both Persian and European concerns about the increasingly powerful Ottoman Empire. 32 00:01:51,680 --> 00:01:53,880 Speaker 1: In particular, it was the power of shot a Bus, 33 00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:57,400 Speaker 1: the first Mountain military who wore healed footwear, that may 34 00:01:57,400 --> 00:02:00,880 Speaker 1: have made heels appealing first to European men and ultimately 35 00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:05,000 Speaker 1: to women. As the heel entered into upper classmen's fashion, 36 00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:07,840 Speaker 1: there was a concurrent trend in women's fashion to adopt 37 00:02:07,880 --> 00:02:11,440 Speaker 1: certain aspects of men's attire. Samahawks said that the women 38 00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:14,200 Speaker 1: who played with this trend were often quote the butt 39 00:02:14,240 --> 00:02:17,240 Speaker 1: of ridicule, and their numerous offenses included their adoption of 40 00:02:17,240 --> 00:02:22,560 Speaker 1: men's military inspired fashion, including broad brimmed hats, ornamented with plumes, doublets, 41 00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:26,840 Speaker 1: carrying weapons, and wearing heels. The heels that both men 42 00:02:26,919 --> 00:02:29,040 Speaker 1: and women wore in the early years of the seventeenth 43 00:02:29,080 --> 00:02:31,920 Speaker 1: century were very low, but they would rise for both 44 00:02:31,960 --> 00:02:35,960 Speaker 1: sexes as the century progressed. The majority of powerful and 45 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:39,079 Speaker 1: privileged men wore heels through the seventeenth century and into 46 00:02:39,120 --> 00:02:42,320 Speaker 1: the early eighteenth century. In France, during the reign of 47 00:02:42,320 --> 00:02:45,560 Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenth from sixteen forty three to seventeen fifteen, 48 00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:50,079 Speaker 1: wearing red high heels was a principal signifier of political privilege, 49 00:02:50,160 --> 00:02:53,560 Speaker 1: limited to the king and his courtiers. Beyond France, red 50 00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:56,720 Speaker 1: heels for men were at first associated with French sophistication, 51 00:02:57,160 --> 00:02:59,440 Speaker 1: but by the end of the seventeenth century they were 52 00:02:59,480 --> 00:03:04,440 Speaker 1: increasing he seen as a feminate, especially in England, Samahawks said, 53 00:03:04,639 --> 00:03:09,080 Speaker 1: fueled by nascent Enlightenment thinking and increasing nationalisms, men's dress 54 00:03:09,120 --> 00:03:11,720 Speaker 1: began to undergo a radical transformation at the end of 55 00:03:11,720 --> 00:03:14,640 Speaker 1: the seventeenth century. It was in the early eighteenth century 56 00:03:14,639 --> 00:03:17,360 Speaker 1: that men abandoned the heel to women's fashions and the 57 00:03:17,400 --> 00:03:22,280 Speaker 1: heel became a signifier of femininity. Those shifts included a 58 00:03:22,320 --> 00:03:25,320 Speaker 1: heightened division between men's and women's attire, as well as 59 00:03:25,360 --> 00:03:29,760 Speaker 1: march differences between French and English men's dress. Samahawk said 60 00:03:30,160 --> 00:03:33,799 Speaker 1: since the seventeenth century, Western culture has shown extreme sensitivity 61 00:03:33,880 --> 00:03:36,720 Speaker 1: to men in heels, especially if it's deemed that the 62 00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:40,360 Speaker 1: heels are being used to increase height. She notes that 63 00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:43,960 Speaker 1: this negative view only increased when Darwinian ideas of survival 64 00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:47,760 Speaker 1: of the fittest became translated into racist and sexist notions 65 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:52,880 Speaker 1: of natural male physical and mental superiority. But heels for 66 00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:54,760 Speaker 1: men made a brief comeback in the middle of the 67 00:03:54,760 --> 00:03:58,920 Speaker 1: twentieth century. Samahak explained the heel began rising in men's 68 00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:01,680 Speaker 1: fashion in the nineteens sixties, and in the early nineteen 69 00:04:01,760 --> 00:04:05,160 Speaker 1: seventies it reached unprecedented heights in direct response, I feel, 70 00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:08,640 Speaker 1: to the burgeoning women's movement. The heels and men's fashion, however, 71 00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:11,880 Speaker 1: were not borrowed from the female wardrobe. They were blocky 72 00:04:11,920 --> 00:04:14,720 Speaker 1: and high like Louis the fourteenth and were touted as 73 00:04:14,720 --> 00:04:18,560 Speaker 1: a way of increasing one stature, masculinity, and confidence. In 74 00:04:18,600 --> 00:04:21,480 Speaker 1: no way did they reference the long standing feminine high 75 00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:26,360 Speaker 1: and thin heel. These days, however, heels on men can 76 00:04:26,400 --> 00:04:29,280 Speaker 1: be construed to emphasize a lack of height rather than 77 00:04:29,400 --> 00:04:33,480 Speaker 1: compensating for it, which means quote that heals on men 78 00:04:33,480 --> 00:04:36,720 Speaker 1: function like a bad to pay. They reveal insecurity, and 79 00:04:36,760 --> 00:04:41,479 Speaker 1: that in our current culture is deemed unappealing. Iconic footwear 80 00:04:41,520 --> 00:04:45,400 Speaker 1: designer Christian Lubaton concurred to a news publication a man 81 00:04:45,400 --> 00:04:48,560 Speaker 1: in heels. That's a prosthesis. But I sympathize the men 82 00:04:48,640 --> 00:04:52,799 Speaker 1: need help, But a man in heels is ridiculous. Clearly 83 00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:56,400 Speaker 1: Mr Lubaton doesn't watch the Cowboy channel. Those bronch and 84 00:04:56,440 --> 00:04:59,880 Speaker 1: bull writers look pretty good. Or, as semel Hack puts it, 85 00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:03,760 Speaker 1: cowboys continue to own their heels and wear them with confidence. 86 00:05:09,080 --> 00:05:11,520 Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Carrie Tatro and produced by 87 00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:13,920 Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart 88 00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:16,000 Speaker 1: Radio's How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots 89 00:05:16,040 --> 00:05:18,200 Speaker 1: of other topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works 90 00:05:18,200 --> 00:05:20,640 Speaker 1: dot com and for our podcast to My Heart radio, 91 00:05:20,720 --> 00:05:23,400 Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you 92 00:05:23,440 --> 00:05:24,640 Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.