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Take a good look at the shoes in your closet. You probably have a couple of pairs of sneakers, perhaps a pair of hiking boots, some flats, some flip-flops and a few pairs of heels. If you're Jolique, your shoe arsenal totals about 213 pairs, but for most people, the inventory is probably closer to 10 or 12 pairs. Which shoes do you wear when you're alone at home? Which shoes would you wear on a hot date at a fine restaurant? More likely than not, the latter scenario is usually where the less comfortable shoes come in—high heels, stiff wingtips, etc.—not to mention the asphyxiating necktie, the restrictive skirt, the double-breasted blazer, and the dreaded pantyhose. Why does dressing up often involve so much discomfort? In a word: status. Thorstein Veblen, in his 100-year-old essay, "Dress as an Expression of the Pecuniary Culture," explains this peculiar mode of masochism:
The reason that we wear uncomfortable clothing on our most important public occasions is to convey (perhaps falsely) a certain social status. That this clothing be restrictive is key to the whole façade—after all, anyone wearing a three-piece suit or a pair of high heels couldn't possibly be a cheap field laborer!
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Speaking of high heels, if you thought the end was near when Skechers and other trendy shoe manufacturers introduced the blasphemous trend of high-heeled sneakers, think again. (When in doubt, always remember: history has a scary way of repeating itself.) The high-heeled shoe reached its zenith centuries before Skechers was even a dustgrain on the world history timeline. The chopine, or champigny, as it's sometimes called, was a popular shoe fashion that first originated in Spain in the 15th century and later became popular in Italy and France in the 16th century. A more extreme example of today's platform shoe, these chopines were shoes with platform soles up to three feet high! They were so high, in fact, that the women who wore them often required the assistance of others to prevent them from falling. The wife of Philip V of Spain required the assistance of two courtiers when she donned her chopines! Of course, that was the whole point: self-imprisonment (through restrictive clothing) bred status. Only the wealthy could afford the luxury of hobbling themselves to the point of requiring ambulatory assistance. Left: A 20-inch chopine from 15th century Venice (author's illustration). |
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But this mania wasn't without its detractors, however. Tourists flocked to Venice just to gawk at the ridiculous sight of women struggling on these towering pedestals. Voltaire called the ladies who wore them "clumsy actresses, half woman and half patten." (Patten being a shoe of extraordinary height.) Even Shakespeare poked fun at the trend when he wrote these lines for Hamlet:
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Made of cork or wood, and covered in bejeweled velvet or leather, the popularity of these fashionable footstools began to diminish in Italy when a number of pregnant women fell off of them and suffered miscarriages. Nevertheless, the fashion continued throughout Europe until as late as the 19th century, only to be replaced by the slightly less awkward "pump" style with a lowered sole and a raised heel. The "status" that restrictive adornment affords to its wearer has been taken to extreme degrees in Euro-American and other cultures around the world. Footbinding in China, heavy gold anklets in Africa, long hair (either worn down or piled several feet high on the head as seen below in 18th c. Europe), tight skirts, corsets, even long painted fingernails—all of these forms of adornment have the common characteristic of making any kind of physical labor nearly impossible. On this subject, Julian Robinson says: "...[T]his inability to perform manual tasks greatly increased the...visual appeal and social value, clearly establishing a claim to prestigious birth, or at least, a wealthy family background." |
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Above: Popular European shoe styles in the 16th and 17th centuries. (Rhead). Left: Extreme hair: "The French Lady in London." (Rhead). |
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Above: German poulaines, 16th c. (Rhead). |
Veblen likes to think that women are most guilty of engaging in this restrictive, status-conscious form of dress, but Jolique must disagree. Just ask any man how easy it is to plant a field of corn in a pair of tasseled loafers and a necktie. Or what about our male friends in Niger, the Wodaabe, who spend hours applying make-up and heavy jewelry in order to compete for womanly affections? Those yards and yards of cowrie shells and feathered headdresses can't be very easy to walk in. (See Desert Drag Queens: Niger's Wodaabe...) |
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Or, since we're speaking of shoes, what about the ridiculous, two-foot-long poulaines that men wore during the 14th century? (Poulaines, which Robinson calls "phallic-shaped," were shoes with long, pointed toes that curled at the end. The points ranged from six inches for a commoner up to two feet for a prince.) Or what about the 12-inch geta that Japanese Emperor Hirohito wore for his 1926 coronation? Whether we like to admit it or not, both men and women have long been slaves to fashion. Adornment serves the convenient, portable function of demonstrating many things about ourselves, not the least of which is our social status. Whether it's a $150 pair of high tops, an expensive manicure or a Porsche 911, our "conspicuous consumption" says a lot about who we are...or who we want to be. April, 2000 Interesting Links: http://www.mtarch.com/bsmcollect.html (Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum) http://alpha6.curtin.edu.au/curtin/dept/physio/podiatry/history.html ("History of Footwear," Department of Podiatry, Perth, Australia. Great photos!) Bibliography: -Langner, Lawrence. The Importance
of Wearing Clothes. New York: Hastings House Publishers, 1959.
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