French Fashion – The History of High Heels

A few months ago I published a post aboutRidiculous clothing details such as the wig and tieHowever, this post was missing one silly item to make it complete, and today we'll talk about it - heels.

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How did high heels come to France?

The first uncomfortable shoes that became fashionable in France came, like a few other things, from… Poland. These were extra-long shoes with an upward-curved toe, named after the city of Krakow where they were invented, or simply Poulaine (the word “Polish” in French), and were the “last cry” in 14th-century fashion.

Because the shoes were so uncomfortable, only wealthy people who didn't have to work could afford to wear them, and the length of the shoe became a kind of status symbol. As a result, over time, the shoes grew longer until they had to be attached to the end of the shoe with a chain around the knee (the Mehadrin even used small silver bells attached to the chain).

After the shoes could no longer grow forward, they could only grow upwards. The fashion for high heels actually began in Turkey in the 16th century, when noblewomen began to put pieces of wood several centimeters high under their shoes so that their dresses would not get dirty from the mud on the streets. The fashion quickly moved to Venice, where it took on a slightly bizarre twist when noblewomen began to walk on stilts accompanied by a servant, who made sure that they did not trip and fall.

Catherine de Medici (1519-1589), a Florentine queen of France, was the one who probably invented the first heel counter, when she placed wedges made of corks under her heels to raise her shoes. On the same occasion, Queen France Also the separation between the right and left shoe because the heel required a slightly different shoe for each foot (different shoes for each foot continued to be unpopular for centuries and in the USA until the mid-19th century most men and women wore shoes without separation between the right and left shoe).

From heels to boots

In the 17th century, Louis XIV (14-1638) brought the fashion for high heels to men. The prosaic reason for this is that the king was not a particularly tall man and needed artificial means to raise him (which is also why he wore high wigs). The heels on the king’s shoes were about 1715 cm long and were painted bright red and sometimes even decorated with miniature pictures.

Like other items of the king's attire, men's high heels also became very fashionable among the nobility, and the fashion continued uninterrupted until the French Revolution, which reduced the height of the shoes (along with quite a few heads). High heels were replaced by boots, which became very popular during the Napoleonic Wars (1796-1815) and created a new role - shoeshine (the servant was sometimes forced not only to polish his master's shoes but also to walk in them for several weeks until they became comfortable enough).

In contrast to men's shoes, which became stronger during the 18th and 19th centuries, so that they would not tear during military campaigns, women's shoes became increasingly delicate. These were thin canvas shoes, which lasted no more than a few weeks and gave rise to the following anecdote: Empress Josephine bought super expensive shoes from one of the most fashionable shoemakers in Paris. However, after a few days, she discovered a hole in them and went to the shoemaker to complain. The shoemaker examined the shoes and said with a nonchalant tone, "Your Majesty, the problem with the shoes is that you walked in them."

And how does all this relate to sabotage?

Finally, a few words should be said about the shoes of the common people. While the women of the European nobility wore exquisite shoes and bought them in commercial quantities (forMarie Antoinette There were no fewer than 500 pairs of shoes (and while Charles X had to wear a new pair of shoes every day), the lower class had to make do with wooden shoes, which were called sabots.

During the 19th century, following the Industrial Revolution, more and more poor workers lost their jobs and were replaced by machines. Angry workers began throwing their wooden shoes into the machines to disable them, thus, without noticing, creating a new word: Sabotage…

Want to read more about French fashion?

All you have to do is log in toThe fashion page on my website And you will find great articles there not only about the history of fashion in France but also practical tips about shops, boutiques, etc.