I’ve seen this image going around, and I feel compelled to point out that it’s only half-right. It’s true that high heels were originally a masculine fashion, but they weren’t originally worn by butchers – nor for any other utilitarian purpose, for that matter.
High heels were worn by men for exactly the same reason they’re worn by women today: to display one’s legs to best effect. Until quite recently, shapely, well-toned calves and thighs were regarded as an absolute prerequisite for male attractiveness. That’s why you see so many paintings of famous men framed to show off their legs – like this one of George Washington displaying his fantastic calves:
… or this one of Louis XIV of France rocking a fabulous pair of red platform heels (check out those thighs!):
… or even this one of Charles I of England showing off his high-heeled riding boots – note, again, the visual emphasis on his well-formed calves:
In summary: were high heels originally worn by men? Yes. Were they worn to keep blood off their feet? No at all – they were worn for the same reason they’re worn today: to look fabulous.
so then how did they become a solo feminine item of attire?
A variety of reasons. In France, for example, high heels fell out out of favour in the court of Napoleon due to their association with aristocratic decadence, while in England, the more conservative fashions of the Victorian era regarded it as indecent for a man to openly display his calves.
But then, fashions come and go. The real question is why heels never came back into fashion for men – and that can be laid squarely at the feet of institutionalised homophobia. Essentially, heels for men were never revived because, by the early 20th Century, sexually provocative attire for men had come to be associated with homosexuality; the resulting moral panic ushered in an era of drab, blocky, fully concealing menswear in which a well-turned calf simply had no place – a setback from which men’s fashion has yet to fully recover.
FASHION HISTORY IS HUMAN HISTORY OK
Thank you, history side of tumblr. That “stay out of blood” thing has been driving me mad.
Wait. So, you’re telling me that the reason straight boys dress horribly is because they’re not over a 100 year old gay panic?
You’re telling me that the gross, baggy, shapeless menswear that has been almost singlehandedly ruining my life is the result of a bunch of dudes in the 1900’s collectively going ‘AAAAH WHAT IF THEY THINK WE’RE GAY’
Fuck that shit. BRING BACK MENS HEELS
BRING BACK MENS TIGHTS
MAKE MEN SEXY AGAIN
Actually the original image and the commentary are both right! Ancient Egyptian butchers wore high heels to avoid the blood and carcasses of slaughtered animals.
In ancient Rome, prostitutes would wear high heels to show that they were, well, prostitutes. In Greece, actors would use heels of varying sizes in costuming to show the social class of characters (the higher the heel, the higher the social ranking of those who wear them, with peasants and the proletariat being barefoot)
In Persia, high heeled shoes were worn by cavalry to help with riding and fighting on horses. In medieval Europe, people would attach heels to their shoes to protect them from dirty, muddy roads. Knights and aristocrats would wear high heeled shoes to prove their nobility.
In round about the 1400′s in Turkey, women started wearing a type of high heeled shoe for no particular reason other than fashion. By the 16th century, men and women were both wearing heels for fashion which is right about where the original commentary starts in.
Putting a heel on a shoe wasn’t something that happened once and got traded around. Different cultures and civilizations innovate and create things concurrently.
The Roman prostitute thing isn’t completely right. The less classy prostitutes wore sandals with literal penises on the bottom so people could follow dicks trudged in the sand. Romans were really big on having sex and nudity everywhere. In Pompeii (I went there and saw for myself) in the apodyterium (changing room) for the public bath they had sexual poses instead of numbers as frescas on the wall to label where you kept your clothes. Oh yes I left my tunic at the fellatio, I think you left yours by the cunnilingus. They used dicks as memorial stones, streets were lined with statues of cock as a sign of masculinity. Even now there are outcrops with penī. So homoerotic and they didn’t even care. The Greeks had erastes and such.
