High Heel Facts – 33 Tidbits for Altocalciphiliacs

Do you love high heels? Maybe you adore them to the point it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Well, whether you’re a fetishist or just a fashion lover, here are 33 high heel facts that are super interesting.

1. Men wore high heels long before women. On the 1600s , it was a sign signal of their level in society. But there were also practical reasons during other periods of history.
2. Emissaries of Abbas the Great in the early 17th century brought modern high heels to Europe. Men such as King Louis XIV later wore them to highlight their social status.
3. Soldiers wore them in 10th Century Persia for better aim stability with bows and arrows during combats
4. Persian cavalry soldiers wore a type of high-heeled shoe to secure their feet in the stirrups.
5. Around 200 BC, Roman actors wore “kathorni” heels to make themselves appear taller. But they were also worn by prostitutes.
6. Egyptian butchers wore high heels to keep their feet out of the blood and debris on the floor.
7. In medieval Europe, the wealthy wore wooden platforms called pattens, to keep their indoor shoes clean while walking outside on the dirty streets.
8. Venetian noblewomen wore heels that could be higher than 24 inches. Known as chopine, these heels meant that women couldn’t really move anywhere on their own.
9. The tallest set of chopine measures in at 50cm.
10. In the 1600s, authorities began regulating heel height. For example, commoners’ heels could only be 1/2 inch, while princes could wear 2.5-inch heels.
    

11. Altocalciphilia is a fetish for high heels.
12. A teenager from Germany ran 100 meters in 14.531 seconds while wearing golden high heels, just 5 seconds slower than Usain Bolt.
13. A 34-year-old French woman ran an entire marathon in 6 hours, 4 minutes, and 7 seconds in heels.
14. High heels push the center of gravity forward, which places the hips and spine out of alignment.
15. The “Alexandra Limp” was a short-lived fad in Victorian London. Fashionable young women mimicked the limp of Princess Alexandra. Some shoe sellers even sold pairs with one heel being lower than the other.
16. According to Jimmy Choo and Gucci, a low heel is less than 2.5 inches (6.4 cm). Mid heels are anything between 2.5 and 3.5 inches (6.4 and 8.9 cm). Any shoe higher than that is considered a high heel. But in general fashion, it’s anything between 2-5 inches.
17. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s high heels, or red slippers, represent the power of common people to triumph over oppression.
18. Wearing high heels isn’t healthy. It increases the pressure in the veins. This can lead to varicose veins, bunions, and injuries from falling.
19. A 17th-century Massachusetts there was a law that would punish a woman as a witch if she lured a man into marriage by wearing high heels.
20. In Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, anyone who wants to wear heels over 2 inches high with less than a one-square-inch heel must first get a permit.
    
    

21. The largest high-heel shoe on record measures 3.96m (12 feet, 11 inches) long and 2.82 m (9 feet 3 inches) tall. Created by Dido Fashion Club on April 20, 2019, this giant shoe was meant to highlight the artistry of shoes.
22. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu hypothesized that men eventually stopped wearing high heels because the association between high-heeled shoes and women tainted high heels for men.
23. When Disneyland Anaheim opened, the pavement was so fresh that high heels sunk into it and got stuck.
24. The infamous red sole of Christian Louboutin shoes was inspired by Andy Warhol’s painting entitled ‘Flowers’. Warhol is known for the bright, eye-catching colors used in his artworks and this can definitely be said for red-soled shoes.
25. Until the 1950s heels were largely made from wood, with the grain of the material running up and down the narrow stem to make it as sturdy as possible.
26. High heels went out of fashion in the 1800s as clothing became more and more conservative.
27.  After the Civil War, the Pinet heel was introduced. It was a short but curved heel popular on lace-up women’s boots. The Cromwell heel on a shoe with a buckle also became common. But the height of these heels remained relatively short.
28. After the French Revolution, high heels became associated with female irrationality and superficiality. They went out of style until the invention of the camera and pinup girls.
29. The first Barbie doll (1959) wore a black and white knit striped bathing suit and black high-heeled shoes. Her shoes had tiny holes that matched a piece in the pedestal that allowed the doll to stand up.
    

30. Some women undergo surgery to shorten their pinky toes and deaden nerves in order to wear high heels without pain.
31. New techniques for molding aluminum and steel that were invented for aircraft during the war spread to lots of everyday products, including shoes. Three designers, Salvatore Ferragamo, Roger Vivier, and André Perugia, have each been credited with inventing the stiletto heel in the early 1950s.
32. Marilyn Monroe and Playboy popularized the stiletto even more, making it a seductive symbol for women out on the prowl.
33. The word “stiletto” is from the Latin “stilus,” meaning “pointed writing stick,” and is related to the word “style.” Also, it’s an Italian word for a small, fine, and very sharp knife