High Heels

High heels were originally worn by men. They were found to be extremely effective in keeping a horse rider’s feet in the stirrups. Then it evolved into a social status symbol and then into a fashion statement. By the 1700s, King Louis XIV began wearing high heels as a sign of status. Soon their popularity and a race for increasingly higher heels required regulation; ½ inch for commoners, 1 inch for the bourgeois, 1½ inches for knights, 2 inches for nobles, and 2½ inches for princes. Butchers also wore heeled shoes to keep them up off the pools of blood.