Conversations With a Village Girl : History of. . .

Heels are the most important item in a girls (and sometimes guy's) closet.An outfit is not complete without a pair.

Most girls who are now obsessed with heels would tell you that they used to hate them. . . I am one of them.

Growing up I never would understand what the fuss was about, with heels. I only rocked sneakers *hiding my face* and flats.

Over the years I went from boys are grouse to OOH! but they are cute, from Oh I hate heels to let me try them out and ended up LURVING them.

This one is for the sistas who hate heels and OKAY! sistas who LOOVE them too. A good pair of heels can perform miracles, they can make any woman feel elegant, slender and ohh-so very glamorous.

Heels can be traced back to 3500BC Egypt, where murals on walls show upper class citizen wearing heels for ceremonial purposes, and disturbingly Egyptian butchers wore them to help them walk through the blood of dead animals.

In the 16th century the high heel was claimed to been invented. Catherine de Medici (Her name too sounds like a pair of very expensive shoe) decided to wear a pair in 1533 on her wedding to Henry II, then Duke who went on to be the future King of France.

She was 14 and short, she had asked a cobbler to make her shoes that would make her appear taller on her wedding day, apparently she wasn't a quite a looker.

Did you know?

There is a legend which claim high heeled shoes were invented by a beautiful young, vertically challenged girl who was fed up with always being kissed on the forehead. So she decided to raise herself three inches tall. . . true or false Clever girl.

It is claimed Catherine de Medici was the inventor and by that she setted a trend in Paris for heeled shoes. The shoe became popular to the rich and powerful men and female. The phrase 'well heeled' was used for the rich.

This trend was popular to men too in the early 1700's Loius XIV ( King of France) decided to rock a pair of very high heels often 5'', with miniature patterns of battle scenes.

The heel between the late 18th century and 19th century became an enemy. Napoleon when he came into power banned the shoe as he wanted everyone to appear equal, because the heel was associated with wealth, many didn't want to be linked to it.

In America the Massachusetts Colony banned women wearing heels, saying that women used them to trap men, and anyone seen wearing them would be prosecuted as witches, The English Parliament also used this logic and treated women wearing heels as witches.Many critics at the time compared the high heel to the cloven hoof of the devil.

Did you know?

The heel was seen as an indication of sexual stereotyping by men. Women who wore heels were seen as 'man made' objects for the use of crippling women.

The heel regain it glory though in the roaring 20's. When I think they realised how idiotic their assumption with the heels were (my opinion). Hemlines became much shorter and this encouraged very high and slender heels.

The 50's and 60's saw a revival of the heel. Christian Dior invented the stiletto in collaboration with designer Roger Vivier to develop a low cut 'Loius' shoe, with narrow heels.

Did you know?

Stiletto in Italian means small dagger, with a slender, tapering blade.

Then with the creation of the miniskirt in the 60's heeled boot were made to enhance the look of bare legs. . .