Why did men stop wearing high heels?
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
http://www.etsy.com/listing/113052867/vintage-mens-1970s-dex...
The 1960s saw a return of low heeled cowboy boots for men and some dandies strutted their stuff in platform shoes in the 1970s.
But the era of men walking around on their toes seems to be behind us. Could we ever return to an era of guys squeezing their big hairy feet into four-inch, shiny, brightly coloured high heels?
Indeed, looking at those shoes, they are much more comfortable than high heels for women. (But I would not want to wear them. At 6'3" I already am taller than I'd like...)
Also anigbrowl has a good point that fashions in the USA and England were different. Your memories are from the USA, the BBC is concerned with England.
The article appeared to be primarily an expository piece on the history of heeled shoes. The thesis, if there was one, seems to be that the rise and fall of heels was driven by the whims of fashion, and that just as associations with attractiveness drove its rise again among women, associations with social status or any of the other drivers of fashion could easily drive its rise again among men. If anything, your example seems to further validate that thesis: local fashions did, in fact, get men to start wearing heels again in places.
Also, consider that while platforms were fashionable in the US during the disco era, this is a BBC article. They didn't catch on over in Europe at all. Thinking of 70s movies, I'm not sure that platforms were even that popular outside of the youth culture, and the disco culture at that, whereas high heels are ubiquitous among adult women of all ages except the very old who are unable to wear them in comfort.
Totally wrong. I was born in 1960, and at my British school if you didn't wear platforms you were laughed at. They were practically compulsory!
Now I know it is the great legacy of our male aristocrat ancestors. What a joke.
Though, she makes a much better impression on me than Louis XIV ever could.
Yes I found a couple of pairs, all over £130, and all out of stock in my, normal, size.
I would have paid that much, if only they had them in stock!
In other words, it is the smallest foot size registered for adults. Practically non-existent, as it is too small for adults and too big for kids.
A very effective filter for a full shoe store to be boiled down to 1-2 pairs immediately.
[I currently live in Japan, and although my feet are only medium in the U.S., I have a lot of problems buying shoes that are big enough here ... they exist, but it's usually the case that if I just choose something I like, the store doesn't stock it or has run out (typically they only get a few pairs of "fringe" sizes). I either have to buy only the most boring and standard shoes (which they sell in large enough numbers to justify carrying fringe sizes) or have to be on a constant lookout for new shipments. As a result, I really hate buying shoes, and often end up wearing them into the ground, getting my feet wet through the holes in my soles when it rains.... TT ]
Of course this is a common request for women's shoes, to combine attractiveness and comfort. But that ends up being contradictory. Attractiveness is often defined as some combination of a raised heel and exposing as much of the foot and toes as possible. That means little material and padding, perhaps some kind of strap fasteners that chafe, and walking with the ankle unnaturally contorted on the high heel. These are exactly contradictory to the requirements to make a comfortable shoe, which means a natural flat sole, covering the toes for protection, and surrounding the foot with plenty of padding to provide support up to the ankle.
Oversimplifying for effect, if you define attractiveness as heel height, then having both attractiveness and comfort indeed becomes impossible.
That all said, there probably is room to innovate in the space in managing those tradeoffs, or at least in bringing that to a wider market. Just not as much as one might think, without realizing that there are inherent contradictions in these opposing requirements.
Edit: Having now read the high heel article, they aren't 100% correct about heels being useless in the muddy streets of the era. Staying up out of the mud was part of the point of heeled boots of the three musketeers type era.
Looking through car advertisements, it seems like headrests became common in the mid-to-late Sixties, after hat-wearing had already started to decline.
Actually, they went out of fashion even earlier. The Persians invented them for horseback riding, and then European aristocracy adopted them to look macho; they increased the height until they got impractical, though. Female aristocracy then adopted them during a trend toward male features in women's fashion in the 17th century.
Then in the Enlightenment, men's fashion took a turn for the practical and sober (Man is Rational!) while women's clothing kept the old ostentatiousness (Woman is Emotional and Sentimental!) - including the heels. So by about 1740-60, men's heels had gone definitively out of fashion, while women kept wearing them.
There are a great many things which influence fashion. Available technology. Lifestyle. Cultural trends. Even sometimes practical considerations.
I will suggest though that by the mid 1700s, anyone "important" was more likely to be riding in a carriage than on horseback.
Industrialisation and international commerce led to a new type of self made wealthy business man.
Before then, the super rich inherited their fortune. The established upper class were known for their impracticality to show that they did not have to work - being pale skinned to highlight that they did not labour outside, extravagant clothing to highlight their status, frills etc.
These new self made business men, such as factory owners, were proud of their new status but wanted to distance themselves from inherited wealth. They stuck to practical, but finely made, clothing.
But have an upvote. It is at least a better argument than the other one so far.
Most men's shoes have a raised heel. If you spend time wearing intentionally flat shoes for weightlifting or similar it can be quite awkward to put on a "normal" pair of shoes.
I guess my point is that any shoe raise your heel at least a tiny bit, so it depends where you draw the subjective line between "normal" and "high".
Slapped down: http://nymag.com/fashion/11/fall/christian-louboutin-red-sol...
Wins on appeal: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/nyregion/court-rules-loubo...
I just can't get over the fact that a private company owns the trademark right to contrast red soles on high heels ... Louis, back me up.
https://www.google.com/search?q=fine+mens+shoes&hl=en...
also see many forms of men's dancing shoes
No, I am not going to get the links for you. HN freezes up my browser. I am not that much of a masochist.)
TFA talks about it a bit but, basically, it's sexier because of the curves it gives to the women wearing them (I apologize for being rude here but it gives them what many men consider a nicer looking ass). But IMHO it only started to make sense once women started to dress with fit/slim clothes. Which may be related what TFA mentions: that when they first started appearing regularly it was on nude or kinky postcards in the late 19th century.
Why do male like them, because, from TFA:
natural courting pose found amongst mammals, with an arched back and protruding buttocks