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High heels, long flowing hair, eyelashes – everything that makes a woman feminine. But it turns out that high heels were not originally designed for women – in fact, they were adopted by women relatively recently to become more masculine. But even though they are wildly popular, anyone you ask would agree with how unpractical, uncomfortable, and almost dangerous they are. It’s almost as if they weren’t meant for walking in. And as a matter of fact, they weren’t.
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A man’s 17th Century Persian shoe, covered in shagreen – horse-hide with pressed mustard seeds
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High heels began their history with the Persian Empire in the early 16th century, when Shah Abbas I had his men wear high heels when riding. The soldiers were able to stand up in the stirrups more comfortably and stably as they shot their arrows, making their accuracy markedly better. Because the accuracy of Abbas’s huge cavalry improved, he was able to defeat the Ottoman Empire and begin relations with the rest of the world. Diplomatic missions to the courts of Russia, Germany, and Spain passed the style into Western Europe, and the riding shoe was eagerly adopted by aristocrats for walking. As more people from all levels of society began adopting high heels, competition grew, and the heels grew higher and higher.
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Louis XIV wearing his trademark heels in a 1701 portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud
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In the 1630′s, there was a craze in women’s fashion to adopt men’s dress, meaning that high heels soon spread to women and children. They also adopted cutting their hair, decreasing the amount of petticoats, smoking pipes, and wearing masculine hats, but as men’s fashion changed for less gaudy colors, silks, and footwear, high heels gradually disappeared.
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In the early 1900′s, heels began to appeal to women once more, and have remained quite popular since. Today, heels are higher than ever, reaching their maximum height at five inches. In fact, now that five inches in the maximum, the sole of the shoe is being raised on platforms to give additional height. To make these extreme shoes wearable, there are many women who go to the extreme of cutting off one or two of their toes to make them wearable. My goodness.
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(via BBC News)
They’re no good for hiking or driving. They get stuck in things. Women in heels are advised to stay off the grass – and also ice, cobbled streets and posh floors.
Yup, they are pretty impractical.