Where does High heels come from?
High heels come from Persia, today's Iran, where they began as riding footwear: a heel helped a horseman keep his foot in the stirrup. Around 1600, as Persia caught Europe's eye, Europe's upper-class men took up heels, and women soon followed.
A heel for the stirrup
For the horse-riding cultures of the Near East, a heel was practical. Elizabeth Semmelhack, a curator at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, says the earliest image of heeled footwear she has seen is a rider's heeled boot on a 9th-century Persian ceramic bowl. Good horsemanship was essential to Persian warfare: when a soldier stood up in his stirrups, the heel helped him secure his stance to shoot his bow and arrow. The cowboy boot keeps that riding heel today.
Persian fashion reaches Europe
At the end of the 16th century, Shah Abbas I of Persia wanted allies in Western Europe against the Ottoman Empire. In 1599 he sent the first Persian diplomatic mission to Europe, to the courts of Russia, Germany and Spain, and a wave of interest in all things Persian followed. Aristocratic men took up Persian-style heeled shoes to look virile. As heels spread down the social ladder, the upper classes made theirs higher, and in muddy 17th-century streets their impracticality was the point.
Why people say France
France made heels a mark of privilege. Louis XIV added about 10 centimetres to his height with heels, often decorated with battle scenes, and their heels and soles were always red, an expensive dye. In the 1670s he decreed that only members of his court could wear red heels. Women had adopted heels in the 1630s, in a fashion for masculine dress; later men's heels grew squarer and lower, women's slimmer, and by 1740 men had given them up.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org ↗ · bbc.com ↗ · collectorsweekly.com ↗
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