High-Heeled Shoes

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High-heeled shoes are shoes which raise the heel of the wearer's foot significantly higher than the toes. When both the heel and the toes are raised, as in a platform shoe, it is generally not considered to be a "high-heel." High-heels come in a wide variety of styles, and the heels are found in many different shapes, including stiletto, block, tapered, blade, and wedge.

High-heels today

Today, high-heels are typically worn in public only by women, who are often expected to wear high-heels at work and on formal occasions. High-heels have seen significant controversy in the medical field lately, with many podiatrists seeing patients whose severe foot problems have been caused almost exclusively by high-heel wear.

Today's high-heels, regardless of heel's shape, are generally limited to women's footwear. Some men's footwear, such as cowboy boots and shoes with a Cuban heel are considered by some to be a high-heel, even though neither tops 3" in the heel. What height constitutes a "high-heel" has long been a point of contention between those who wear very high-heels and those who wear lower heels. Most women comfortably wear heels between 2" and 3". Shoes with higher heels, such as those above 4", are worn only by a minority. Extremely high-heeled shoes, such as those higher than 5", are effectively worn only for display, and typically for the enjoyment of shoe fetishists and/or the wearer.

There are many reasons why women desire to wear heels, including:

the change in angle of the foot with respect to the lower leg shortens and accentuates the calves
they make the woman appear taller (this can be either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on whether the woman desires to appear taller or shorter)
one's legs look longer, and therefore more sensuous
the change in gait and posture thrusts the buttocks backwards, and causes the hips to sway more - both strong sexual signs
many heels, particularly sandals, make the sole of the foot visible, also a strong sexual sign (see shoe dangling)
stiletto heels appear to some as a phallic symbol

However, some women shun these shoes because:

high-heels can be painful to wear, particularly for long periods
they shorten the stride of the wearer
they make the wearer less able to run, and hence more vulnerable
they can damage the wearer's feet and tendons when worn over long periods (see below)
progressively higher heels are progressively riskier and more difficult to walk in; tripping is much more likely, and the risk of damaging the wearer's ankles, toes, and feet, both short-term and long-term, is similarly increased.

As a result of these conflicting factors, many women have a love/hate relationship with high-heeled shoes. This does not prevent the majority of women from owning several pair of high-heels. A small proportion of women seem to be obsessed with high-heels, owning many pairs. Imelda Marcos, for example, was famous for her vast collection. Second-wave feminism considered high-heeled shoes a tool of female oppression, constraining their movements and behavior as much as possible; however, third-wave "sex-positive" feminism supports a person's choice to wear high heels for pleasure. Throughout the last sixty years, high-heels have fallen in and out of favor several times, most notably in the late 90s, when lower heels and even flats predominated. Lower heels were preferred during the late 60s and early 70s, as well, but higher heels returned in the late 80s and early 90s. The shape of the heel has vacillated back and forth between block (70s), tapered (90s), and stiletto (50s and post-2000).

History of the high-heeled shoe

As early as the late fifteenth century, horsemen grew tired of their feet slipping out of their stirrups, which were little more than loops of leather hung from the saddle. As the soft stirrup gave way to the hard stirrup, for reasons of quicker mounting and dismounting during battle, an additional problem was encountered in that the hard stirrup was much more tiring and damaging to the rider's feet during longer rides.

The obvious solution was to design a leather shoe with a thicker sole that supported the rider's weight, distributing the pressure from the stirrups over more of the bottom of the rider's feet. However this failed to solve the problem of the rider's feet slipping forward in the stirrups, often with comical, if not tragic results.

Cobblers had been adding thin, flat heels to shoes by this time, as a pair of leather shoes was very expensive, and both soles and heels were developed to protect the owner's comfort and investment by increasing the long-term durability of the shoe and distributing uneven pressures from rough terrain more evenly over the owners' feet.

Riders and cobblers worked together to develop the "rider's heel," with a height of approximately 1-1/2" down, which appeared around 1500. The leading edge was canted forward to help grip the stirrup, while the trailing edge was canted forward to prevent the elongated heel from catching on underbrush or rock while backing up, such as in on-foot combat. These design features are still in use today in riding boots.

The simple riding heel gave way to a more stylized heel over its first three decades, during which time military uniforms became more stylized, particularly among the nobility, for whom style equated with social status. Beginning with the French, heel heights among men crept up, often becoming higher and thinner, until they were no longer useful while riding, but were relegated to "court-only" wear.

In 1533, more than three decades after the male French nobility began wearing heels, the diminutive wife of the Duke of Orleans, Catherine de Medici, commissioned a cobbler to fashion her a pair of heels, both for fashion, and to increase her stature. This was the first written record of the high-heeled shoe.

It's been said by some that Leonardo Da Vinci was the inventor of the high-heel.^{[citation needed]} While he may have designed a heel or two in his day, the truth is that it really was invented due to military necessity. High-heeled fashion quickly caught on with the fashion-conscious men and women of the French court, and spread to other pockets of nobility in other countries. Both men and women continued wearing heels as a matter of noble fashion throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

When the French Revolution drew near, in the late 1700s, the practice of wearing heels drew to a close, as the term "well-heeled" became synonymous with opulent wealth, and could incur the ire of the public at large.

Throughout most of the 1800s, flats and sandals were the normative style for both sexes, but the heel resurfaced in fashion during the late 1800's, almost exclusively among women. Since the early 1900s, high-heel design has run the gamut of styles. While today's fashions favor pointed toes, most styles that have appeared over the last century remain available in one form or another, along with a plethora of newer styles.

Foot and tendon problems

High-heeled shoes cant the foot forward and down while bending the toes up. This unnatural position, if continued without variation, will cause the Achilles tendon to shorten, causing problems when the wearer chooses lower heels, flats, or walking barefoot. When the foot cants forward, a disproportionately greater amount of the wearer's weight is transferred to the ball of the foot, increasing likelihood of damage to the underlying soft tissue which supports the foot. In many shoes, style dictates function, either compressing the toes, or forcing them together, which results in blisters, corns, hammer-toes, bunions, and many other medical conditions, most of which are permanent, and will require surgery to alleviate the pain.

The best solution to avoid these problems is to avoid heels altogether. If that's not acceptable, then the wearer should ensure they're wearing high-heels no more than half the time, and that they're spending at least a third of the time on their feet either barefoot, in flats, or in a good running/walking/cross-training shoe. This regimen will prevent most foot problems associated with high-heels.

One of the most critical problems with high-heels is with the design and construction of the toebox. Improper construction here wreaks the most damage and long-term pain on the foot. Narrow toe boxes force the toes together. Several celebrities, such as Victoria Beckham, have come to the point where surgery is needed to recover from the damages caused by wearing high-heels too often. Ensuring room exists for the toes to assume a normal position and spending sufficient time out of high-heels allows the body to repair any damage caused by high-heels, thereby recovering to a sufficiently healthy point where high-heel wear remains an option, rather than a debilitating practice. Unfortunately, the most common design trend today is towards the extremely pointed toe.

Block heels do not necessarily offer more stability, and any raised heel with too large a width, such as blade and block heels, induces unhealthy side-to-side torques to the ankle every step. Heels which strike the ground too far after of the ankle over-torque the ankle forward, producing extreme stress on the ankle, and creating additional impact on the ball of the foot, both of which are highly undesirable. Thus, the best design for a high-heel is one with a narrower width, where the heel is closer to the front, more solidly under the ankle, where the toe box provides room enough for the toes, and where forward movement of the foot in the shoe is kept in check by material snug across the instep, rather than by toes jamming together in the toe box. Naturally, this rules out most pumps, but boots, particularly lace-ups with a round toe box and forward heel, are surprisingly supportive.

Interestingly enough, despite the medical issues surrounding high-heel wear, a few podiatrists recommend a well-constructed low heel of no more than two inches for their patients with flat feet. It appears the moderate heel improves the angle of contact between the metatarsals and the horizontal plane, thereby more closely approximating the angle and resulting weight distribution of a normally-arched foot. The angle for high-arched feet, however, is already exaggerated, and the wear of heels by those with high arches can be particularly problematic for the metatarsal phalangeal joint.

Men and heels

Except for cowboy boots, which continued to be used as a riding heel, men's shoes sported only low heels until a brief resurgence in the 1970s.

While high-heels are marketed almost exclusively to women, a small percentage of men have worn, and continue to wear heels for various reasons, including personal preference, medical reasons, gender identity issues, and fetish roles. Although the idea of men wearing heels certainly isn't new, it is unusual in modern times, and as a result, some pockets of society consider it deviant. Whether it meets DSM-IV criteria for deviancy or not, however, depends entirely on one's reason behind wearing heels, and many people, including psychologists, don't consider it deviant at all, regardless of the reason, simply due to the fact that gender-specific clothing styles are rapidly disappearing anyway, as well as the fact that men invented heels, and wore them for more than 200 years before fashions changed, as they invariably do. Surprisingly, however, many men who report wearing masculine-styled heels in public not only encounter very little resistance, but are met with a surprising amount of appreciation and encouragement for their choice of fashion.

As an example, the last four decades of rock and roll have seen many performers wearing heels, both on and off the stage. Many men have worn high-heels in secret over the last century, but a surprising number have worn heels in public, as well, usually in the form of high-heeled boots. Over the last decade, the Internet has brought together many men who consider the wearing of heels, and even skirts, as merely the continuation of what men have been doing for hundreds of years in the case of heels, and tens of thousands of years in the case of wearing skirts. In fact, more than a third of all men worldwide still wear skirts on a regular basis, but this is largely lost on the somewhat insulated Western fashion culture. While the wearing of heels by men in public is still rare, it's a continually growing phenomenon, one that appears to be accelerating.

The practice of men wearing heels continues to grow throughout Westernized countries including the US and Europe, and to a lesser extent in various pockets of Asia. This trend has not been lost on fashion designers, who have occasionally featured men wearing heels on the runways since the mid 1990s. Recent changes by shoe manufacturers, including marketing more masculine styles and heels with significantly larger sizes to accommodate men, appears to underscore this trend, and many of the more masculine high-heeled shoe and boot designs that were only available in sizes up to 11 just two years ago are now available in sizes up to 13.

The future of heels

While it is impossible to predict the future of fashion, there are several interesting trends.

First is a return to leather, which for heels makes a lot of sense, since leather excels at providing support while gently remolding and conforming itself to the wearer's foot to provide better distributed support, thereby eliminating hot spots. Furthermore, in addition to providing comfortable, but not excessive levels of warmth, leather breaths fairly well, unlike synthetic coverings.

Second is an increased emphasis on ergonomics. Heels that hurt aren't given much word of mouth, a fact which isn't lost among designers. Heels that combine good looks with proper construction and support are comfortable to wear all day, which to designers, is free advertising. Combined with the fact that consumers are more discriminating with respect to good fit in the store, it's easy to see why ergonomics is playing an increasing role. Some of the more recent shoes and boots have been designed with built-in gel inserts to support the ball of the foot and the heel.

Third is the use of mixed materials. Cuts including both smooth and suede leathers, as well as natural and synthetic leathers, even fabric in some areas, is becoming more common. This trend uses the best textile for any given area, capitalizing on that textile's strength, and minimizing it's weakness. Recent examples include the use of tough rubber non-skid soles and heel-tips, gel inserts for cushioned comfort, leather toe boxes and uppers, synthetic fabric linings and padding to keep moisture away from the foot, stretch synthetic leather insteps to keep the foot firm against the footbed, and plastic zippers.

My Musings...

Saturday, March 4, 2006