High-heeled shoe
High-heeled shoe
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High-heeled shoe

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High-heeled shoe

High-heeled shoes, also known as high heels (colloquially shortened to heels), are a type of shoe with an upward-angled sole. The heel in such shoes is raised above the ball of the foot. High heels cause the legs to appear longer, make the wearer appear taller, and accentuate the calf muscle.

There are many types of high heels in varying styles, heights, and materials. High heels have been used in various ways to convey nationality, professional affiliation, gender, and social status. High heels have been an important statement piece of fashion for centuries in the West.

High heels spread from equestrian origins with the 10th century Persian galesh to wider fashion use. In early 17th-century Europe, high heels were a sign of masculinity and high social status. Towards the end of the century, the trend began to spread to women's fashion. By the 18th century, high-heeled shoes had split along gender lines. By this time, heels for men were chunky squares attached to riding boots or tall formal dress boots, while women's high heels were narrow, pointy, and often attached to slipper-like dress shoes (similar to modern heels). By the 20th century, high heels with a slim profile represented femininity; however, a thick high heel on a boot or clog was still socially acceptable for men. Until the 1950s, shoe heels were typically made of wood, but in recent years they have been made of a variety of materials including leather, suede, and plastic.

Wearing high heels is associated with greater risk of falls, musculoskeletal pain, development of foot deformities, and varicose veins.

Starting in the 10th century, the Persian cavalry wore galesh, a kind of boot with heels, to ensure their feet stayed in the stirrups. Heeled shoes also ensured the safety of Persian arrow-shooting riders, while standing up on galloping horses. This utility of the heel for horseback riders has been preserved in the Western cowboy boot. Wearing heels became associated with wealth because of its traditional connection with horseback riding, which was expensive and time-consuming. This practical use of the heel set the standard for most horseback riding shoes throughout history and into the present day.

After the Great Schism in the 11th century, the Pope notably began wearing red-heeled shoes. In 12th-century India, a statue from the Ramappa Temple depicts an Indian woman's feet clad in raised shoes called paduka.[failed verification] During the Medieval period in Europe, both men and women wore wooden pattens under or around their shoes to raise themselves out of the dirty and excrement-filled streets. The chopine combined this with the shoe, reaching heights up to 15 inches (38 cm) by 1430. Venetian law later limited the height to three inches—but this regulation was widely ignored. At the end of the Elizabethan era, cavalier boots were introduced for riding. These originally had relatively low heels, but by the time of the English Civil War stacked heels for men of up to two inches were common. A 17th-century law in Massachusetts announced that women would be subjected to the same treatment as witches if they lured men into marriage via the use of high-heeled shoes.

Under the Manchu Qing dynasty, most wealthy Han women had bound feet with lotus shoes but some women wore platform shoes elevated—like many chopine—at the center of the sole rather than at the heels.

Modern high heels were brought to Europe by Persian emissaries of Abbas the Great in the early 17th century. Men wore them to imply their upper-class status; only someone who did not have to work could afford, both financially and practically, to wear such extravagant shoes. Royalty such as King Louis XIV wore heels, and his predecessor King Louis XIII introduced the red heel to the court of French nobility. As the shoes became a fashion trend, other members of society began donning high heels, and some elite members ordered their heels to be made even higher to distinguish themselves from the lower classes. As women began to wear heeled shoes in the mid-to-late 17th century, societal trends moved to distinguish men's heels from women's heels. By the 18th century, men wore thick heels, while women wore thin ones. Over the course of the Enlightenment, men's heels began to concentrate on either practical riding boots or tall leather boots worn for status. In the late 1780s, the societal implications of wearing high and thin heels became fixed: high, thin heels represented femininity and the supposed superficiality and extravagance of women.

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