WEBVTT - Who Wore High-Heeled Shoes First? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.520 Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:10.639 brain Stuff Lauren boge obam here. Although these days wearing 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:14.400 shoes with high heels is mostly coded feminine, the original 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:19.320 wears of high heels were men. So what's the history here? When, where, 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:22.840 and why did people first begin wearing shoes with elevated heels. 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.360 We spoke via email with Elizabeth Semmelhawk, senior curator at 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:31.320 Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum, who says she has yet to 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:35.080 unravel this mystery. The exact origin of high heels remains 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.400 to be discovered. What's clear, however, is that high heels 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:42.000 were not a European invention. Heeled footwear only emerged in 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:44.640 Western Europe around the turn of the seventeenth century, but 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.160 had been warned for hundreds of years prior throughout Western Asia. 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:52.280 Similhawks said evidence for early Western Asian heels as far 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.680 back as tenth century Persia suggests a strong relationship to 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:58.160 horseback riding and may have been connected to the innovation 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.360 of the stirrup. The store Up family changed horseback riding 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:04.679 and in particular made military campaigns on horseback more effective, 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:08.120 as it enabled riders to study themselves and dramatically improved 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.400 the effective use of weapons such as the lance and 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:12.800 bow and arrow. The heel seems to have been a 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.679 further development of this technology, as it allowed the wearer 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:17.920 to hook his feet in the stirrups that are anchoring 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:22.959 him to his steed. Eventually, healed footwear for men spread 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:26.399 to Europe, likely through political networks and trade, but the 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:30.320 exact evolution is complicated. So why did heel's only become 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.440 of interest to Europeans around the beginning of the sixteen hundreds, 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.240 Semmelhack said The answer lies in things as complex as 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.720 European world exploration and the destabilizing of the textile trade, 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.080 to the rise of Persia under the reign of shah 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.800 Abbus the first from fight to sixteen twenty nine, and 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:51.080 both Persian and European concerns about the increasingly powerful Ottoman Empire. 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:53.880 In particular, it was the power of shot a Bus, 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.400 the first Mountain military who wore healed footwear, that may 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.880 have made heels appealing first to European men and ultimately 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:05.000 to women. As the heel entered into upper classmen's fashion, 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.840 there was a concurrent trend in women's fashion to adopt 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.440 certain aspects of men's attire. Samahawks said that the women 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.200 who played with this trend were often quote the butt 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.240 of ridicule, and their numerous offenses included their adoption of 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:22.560 men's military inspired fashion, including broad brimmed hats, ornamented with plumes, doublets, 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.840 carrying weapons, and wearing heels. The heels that both men 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:29.040 and women wore in the early years of the seventeenth 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.920 century were very low, but they would rise for both 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.960 sexes as the century progressed. The majority of powerful and 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.079 privileged men wore heels through the seventeenth century and into 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.320 the early eighteenth century. In France, during the reign of 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:45.560 Louis the fourteenth from sixteen forty three to seventeen fifteen, 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:50.079 wearing red high heels was a principal signifier of political privilege, 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.560 limited to the king and his courtiers. Beyond France, red 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.720 heels for men were at first associated with French sophistication, 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.440 but by the end of the seventeenth century they were 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:04.440 increasing he seen as a feminate, especially in England, Samahawks said, 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:09.080 fueled by nascent Enlightenment thinking and increasing nationalisms, men's dress 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:11.720 began to undergo a radical transformation at the end of 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.640 the seventeenth century. It was in the early eighteenth century 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.360 that men abandoned the heel to women's fashions and the 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:22.280 heel became a signifier of femininity. Those shifts included a 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:25.320 heightened division between men's and women's attire, as well as 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:29.760 march differences between French and English men's dress. Samahawk said 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.799 since the seventeenth century, Western culture has shown extreme sensitivity 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.720 to men in heels, especially if it's deemed that the 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:40.360 heels are being used to increase height. She notes that 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.960 this negative view only increased when Darwinian ideas of survival 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.760 of the fittest became translated into racist and sexist notions 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:52.880 of natural male physical and mental superiority. But heels for 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:54.760 men made a brief comeback in the middle of the 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.920 twentieth century. Samahak explained the heel began rising in men's 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.680 fashion in the nineteens sixties, and in the early nineteen 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:05.160 seventies it reached unprecedented heights in direct response, I feel, 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.640 to the burgeoning women's movement. The heels and men's fashion, however, 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.880 were not borrowed from the female wardrobe. They were blocky 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.720 and high like Louis the fourteenth and were touted as 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.560 a way of increasing one stature, masculinity, and confidence. In 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.480 no way did they reference the long standing feminine high 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:26.360 and thin heel. These days, however, heels on men can 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.280 be construed to emphasize a lack of height rather than 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:33.480 compensating for it, which means quote that heals on men 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:36.720 function like a bad to pay. They reveal insecurity, and 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:41.479 that in our current culture is deemed unappealing. Iconic footwear 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:45.400 designer Christian Lubaton concurred to a news publication a man 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.560 in heels. That's a prosthesis. But I sympathize the men 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:52.799 need help, But a man in heels is ridiculous. Clearly 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:56.400 Mr Lubaton doesn't watch the Cowboy channel. Those bronch and 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.880 bull writers look pretty good. Or, as semel Hack puts it, 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.760 cowboys continue to own their heels and wear them with confidence. 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:11.520 Today's episode was written by Carrie Tatro and produced by 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:13.920 Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.000 Radio's How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:18.200 of other topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:20.640 dot com and for our podcast to My Heart radio, 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.400 visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:24.640 listen to your favorite shows.