Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren boge obam here. Although these days wearing
Speaker 1: shoes with high heels is mostly coded feminine, the original
Speaker 1: wears of high heels were men. So what's the history here? When, where,
Speaker 1: and why did people first begin wearing shoes with elevated heels.
Speaker 1: We spoke via email with Elizabeth Semmelhawk, senior curator at
Speaker 1: Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum, who says she has yet to
Speaker 1: unravel this mystery. The exact origin of high heels remains
Speaker 1: to be discovered. What's clear, however, is that high heels
Speaker 1: were not a European invention. Heeled footwear only emerged in
Speaker 1: Western Europe around the turn of the seventeenth century, but
Speaker 1: had been warned for hundreds of years prior throughout Western Asia.
Speaker 1: Similhawks said evidence for early Western Asian heels as far
Speaker 1: back as tenth century Persia suggests a strong relationship to
Speaker 1: horseback riding and may have been connected to the innovation
Speaker 1: of the stirrup. The store Up family changed horseback riding
Speaker 1: and in particular made military campaigns on horseback more effective,
Speaker 1: as it enabled riders to study themselves and dramatically improved
Speaker 1: the effective use of weapons such as the lance and
Speaker 1: bow and arrow. The heel seems to have been a
Speaker 1: further development of this technology, as it allowed the wearer
Speaker 1: to hook his feet in the stirrups that are anchoring
Speaker 1: him to his steed. Eventually, healed footwear for men spread
Speaker 1: to Europe, likely through political networks and trade, but the
Speaker 1: exact evolution is complicated. So why did heel's only become
Speaker 1: of interest to Europeans around the beginning of the sixteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: Semmelhack said The answer lies in things as complex as
Speaker 1: European world exploration and the destabilizing of the textile trade,
Speaker 1: to the rise of Persia under the reign of shah
Speaker 1: Abbus the first from fight to sixteen twenty nine, and
Speaker 1: both Persian and European concerns about the increasingly powerful Ottoman Empire.
Speaker 1: In particular, it was the power of shot a Bus,
Speaker 1: the first Mountain military who wore healed footwear, that may
Speaker 1: have made heels appealing first to European men and ultimately
Speaker 1: to women. As the heel entered into upper classmen's fashion,
Speaker 1: there was a concurrent trend in women's fashion to adopt
Speaker 1: certain aspects of men's attire. Samahawks said that the women
Speaker 1: who played with this trend were often quote the butt
Speaker 1: of ridicule, and their numerous offenses included their adoption of
Speaker 1: men's military inspired fashion, including broad brimmed hats, ornamented with plumes, doublets,
Speaker 1: carrying weapons, and wearing heels. The heels that both men
Speaker 1: and women wore in the early years of the seventeenth
Speaker 1: century were very low, but they would rise for both
Speaker 1: sexes as the century progressed. The majority of powerful and
Speaker 1: privileged men wore heels through the seventeenth century and into
Speaker 1: the early eighteenth century. In France, during the reign of
Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenth from sixteen forty three to seventeen fifteen,
Speaker 1: wearing red high heels was a principal signifier of political privilege,
Speaker 1: limited to the king and his courtiers. Beyond France, red
Speaker 1: heels for men were at first associated with French sophistication,
Speaker 1: but by the end of the seventeenth century they were
Speaker 1: increasing he seen as a feminate, especially in England, Samahawks said,
Speaker 1: fueled by nascent Enlightenment thinking and increasing nationalisms, men's dress
Speaker 1: began to undergo a radical transformation at the end of
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century. It was in the early eighteenth century
Speaker 1: that men abandoned the heel to women's fashions and the
Speaker 1: heel became a signifier of femininity. Those shifts included a
Speaker 1: heightened division between men's and women's attire, as well as
Speaker 1: march differences between French and English men's dress. Samahawk said
Speaker 1: since the seventeenth century, Western culture has shown extreme sensitivity
Speaker 1: to men in heels, especially if it's deemed that the
Speaker 1: heels are being used to increase height. She notes that
Speaker 1: this negative view only increased when Darwinian ideas of survival
Speaker 1: of the fittest became translated into racist and sexist notions
Speaker 1: of natural male physical and mental superiority. But heels for
Speaker 1: men made a brief comeback in the middle of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Samahak explained the heel began rising in men's
Speaker 1: fashion in the nineteens sixties, and in the early nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies it reached unprecedented heights in direct response, I feel,
Speaker 1: to the burgeoning women's movement. The heels and men's fashion, however,
Speaker 1: were not borrowed from the female wardrobe. They were blocky
Speaker 1: and high like Louis the fourteenth and were touted as
Speaker 1: a way of increasing one stature, masculinity, and confidence. In
Speaker 1: no way did they reference the long standing feminine high
Speaker 1: and thin heel. These days, however, heels on men can
Speaker 1: be construed to emphasize a lack of height rather than
Speaker 1: compensating for it, which means quote that heals on men
Speaker 1: function like a bad to pay. They reveal insecurity, and
Speaker 1: that in our current culture is deemed unappealing. Iconic footwear
Speaker 1: designer Christian Lubaton concurred to a news publication a man
Speaker 1: in heels. That's a prosthesis. But I sympathize the men
Speaker 1: need help, But a man in heels is ridiculous. Clearly
Speaker 1: Mr Lubaton doesn't watch the Cowboy channel. Those bronch and
Speaker 1: bull writers look pretty good. Or, as semel Hack puts it,
Speaker 1: cowboys continue to own their heels and wear them with confidence.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Carrie Tatro and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio's How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots
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