Elongating bodies and crushing metatarsals for centuries, Daisy explores the stiletto — a polarizing sign of both oppression and freedom...

Stilettos never go out of style, or out of controversy. Whether you see the glamorous shoe as a professional choice for the boardroom, a sexy choice for the bedroom, a provocative choice for pushing the fashion envelope, a classy choice associated with wealthiness or glamour, maybe even a trashy choice you would never bother wearing; you have to admit the myriad of questions raised by this singular shoe is pretty intriguing. It’s been involved in so much feminist protest — both as an oppressive symbol of anti-feminism and a joyful feminist symbol of sexuality and choice. How can such a classic shoe still be such a confusing sign of both oppression and freedom? One thing’s for sure, the stiletto — borrowing its name from the slender-bladed dagger — is definitely a feminine weapon.

The sultry silhouette has a surprising, gender-bending history that may well explain its stamina in the shoe world and why it bears such heavy links to power, sexuality and freedom. 

Since strutting their way back into the fashion landscape in the 1950s, stilettos have never really fallen from grace. Despite being notoriously difficult and painful to walk in, they still dominate runways and social media trends. Just look at recent AW21 collections: we had studded stilettos at Valentino, bejewelled pairs at Gucci, patent black pumps at Michael Kors, neon orange slingbacks at Balmain, even reflective silver and gold at Moschino and Dries Van Noten. They’re everywhere.

And what about the ‘statement stiletto’? With its spot solidified in pop culture by none other than Carrie Bradshaw racing around NYC in the famous shoe — somehow giving us beauty through the (assumed) pain she must have constantly been in. I’m talking about Jimmy Choo’s Anouk, Manolo Blahnik’s Hangisi, or the to-die-for, red-bottomed Christian Louboutin So Kate pumps: all shoes admired for the elegant shapes they create and the timeless sex appeal they ooze with each loud, look-at-me click of their heels. 

Disclaimer: men & non-binary people can obviously also rock a stunning heel — or refuse to wear the restrictive shoes in their own right. Picture David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Jared Leto, Billy Porter, etc for example. But for a big chunk of history, heels — especially stilettos — have been forced upon women, making them the focus of our exploration of the famous heels. That being said, connotations surrounding masculinity and heels are pretty interesting too, so let us know if you want to see that conversation next.

So, how did the needle-sharp heel come to be associated with femininity in its various forms?

If we really want to go back, like way back, to the first tall shoe then known as chopines, we need to jump all the way back to the 1400s (although we don’t recommend jumping if you’re wearing stilettos). These wooden shoes could be up to 18 inches tall, believed to have originated among prostitutes in Venice as a creative way to literally raise their wearer above rivals. As with most new trends, what was once associated with the ‘lower class’ eventually bubbled up to the elites and chopines became popular amongst the aristocracy as a fabulous symbol of a lifestyle so wealthy, so luxurious that you clearly never had to work — or walk. Alternative theories suggest that high heels originated from male equestrian footwear — designed with a heel to fit in the stirrups — but I much prefer the absurdity of the chopines. Either way, the first recorded wearer of high heels in Europe was none other than Queen Elizabeth I herself in 1595. 

It may surprise you to find out that the glamour icon you have to thank for really popularising heels was King Louis XIV in the 16th century. This flashy French king knew that high shoes were associated with power and status, so chose to don red-bottomed heels as his go-to accessory. People immediately jumped on the bandwagon buying red-soled knockoffs of the royal footwear, much like people buy imitation Louboutins today.

Heels were the status symbol of choice for the upper classes regardless of gender until the late 18th century when it was decided that they demonstrated a feminine frivolity and should be relegated to women only. Now that they were a novelty for the women of the times, the heels grew taller and more uncomfortable, with poetry of the time (the 18th century, that is) even claiming “tis the fashion to totter and show you can fall.” This rejection of the heel was largely thanks to the mindset of the French revolution which placed a lot of negative emphasis on money spent on luxuries like shoes by the bourgeoisie, prioritising practicality and reason instead. Heels were a symbol of frivolity and unacceptable femininity; when Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804, he actually made a point of wearing flats. 

(Perhaps women continued to wear increasingly over-the-top heels because they knew that they’d be dismissed as frivolous and irrational whether they wore towering heels or practical work boots — might as well pick the most fabulous option.)

Fast forwards to the 40s when technological advances finally meant the thin, bladelike heel of the stiletto could become a reality and ta-da! The modern-day stiletto was born. Already, heels had jumped between symbols of prostitution and of elegance, hopped between genders and travelled the globe — and there was plenty more of that to come.

Thanks to the technology invented for aircraft carriers, shoe designers were now able to utilise aluminium, fuse materials with injection moulding and elongate that heel to new heights — isn’t it crazy the complexity of the technology required to create such an impractical shoe? The designers credited with ‘inventing’ the stiletto are Salvatore Ferragamo, Rogier Vivier & Andre Perugia but the stars of the silver screen were the ones who really sold it to the masses. Take the immortally gorgeous Marylin Monroe for example; quoted to have said “I don’t know who invented the high heel, but women owe him a lot”, she was always sporting a stiletto and even developed her signature sexy saunter in four-inch Salvatore Ferragamo’s by getting one heel a quarter-inch shorter than the other to introduce a wiggle to her walk.

Fast-forward through modern depictions of the heel and we see it becoming a rejected hinderance to women in the 70s, a power shoe for working women in the 80s, a pop culture trend in the 00s, but forever a conduit through which artists could explore gender. 

How often do we see the stiletto involved in depictions of fetish, a mobility restrictor, an enforcer of tiny steps, and seductive curves? Or a photographer’s muse in depictions of power, violence and femininity (see the work of Helmut Newton and Allen Jones)? They even play into drag queens’ performances of femininity and sexuality on the stage. As for celebrities? Well, we’ve all been obsessed by the giant impossible-seeming stiletto platforms worn by Lady Gaga, Daphne Guinness, Victoria Beckham and the Kardashians back in the day — as well as by the ‘heel-protests’ staged at events by people like Kristen Stewart, Cara Delevigne, Lena Dunham and Emily Blunt. 

So why the controversy? Why has a heel that so many people hate to wear been around for such a long time? And why can’t we agree on what it stands for? 

It’s kind of sad, when you google the stiletto that the first predictive search suggestions are frequently asked questions that all amount to worried heel-wearers trying to get a gauge what is “appropriate” for them to wear. “What heel height is professional?” “Do I have to wear heels to work?” “How to walk in stilettos?” “Are stiletto’s bad for your feet?” The list goes on. How is it that heels can figuratively and literally lift us up — even being enforced by some dress codes, but also knock us down? If you don’t know what I mean when I talk about the way that heels can hold their wearers back, allow me to explain (but don’t worry, I’ll talk about how they can lift us up too). 

It seems like the assumed ability to deal with pain is something closely linked to womanhood — oh, we can deal with period pains, they aren’t that bad; we can get turned away by doctors who don’t believe the severity of the symptoms we report; we can even be told to wear painful heels which slow us down and can permanently damage our heels. Would men ever be asked to wear something which damaged their bodies? You bet your bottom dollar they wouldn’t — if research into a male contraceptive was halted because of the discovery of possible side-effects (which it was in 2016), but women continue to be expected to suffer the various painful side effects of our contraceptives — the double standard is clear as day.

Christian Louboutin himself once said, “the core of my work is dedicated not to pleasing women, but to pleasing men.” And there lies another objection to the wearing of the stiletto — are we wearing them because men make us? They’re a constant symbol of femininity forced upon us and expected of us. We’ve seen models totter down runways and take terrible tumbles in the name of the heel, and $3.5 billion is spent in the US on foot surgery each year — mainly thanks to the repair required for heel-caused damage like ‘pump bump’, bunions, and hammertoes. At what point do we ask who are we destroying our feet for: our own empowerment, or for the benefit of others? 

Stilettos have taken on such a sense of mandatory professionalism, as if they were a clean shirt or a hairnet, instead of a painful shoe. They are the female equivalent of the suit and tie — the ticket into male-dominated career space but also, somehow, the reason that men won’t take us seriously. So many inspiring women wear killer heels each day (and radiate power, stability, and success whilst doing it) like Sheryl Sandberg, Dolly Singh or Marissa Mayer — if they turned up to work in converse or flats it would be the office gossip all day and you can be sure there’d be comments about a lack of professionalism. But here comes that all too familiar double-edged sword, because the exact stilettos that lift women up to the top-floor offices where they belong often get painfully stabbed into their backs and used to critique them for lacking brains, or lacking professionalism. All too often women wearing big heels at work are teased for being vain, being impractical, being girly, or even being dumb… but if they wear flats, they’re critiqued for being messy, unprofessional, or unfeminine… Do you see the issue here? We simply can’t win.

It seems we have to brave the pain and wear heels to gain access to professional spaces, but the second we begin to achieve, our ‘flirtatious’ and ‘impractical’ footwear is seen as ‘cheating’ almost as if we slept with the boss to get ahead by dressing ourselves in overly ambitious attire and thus being more assertive than we deserve to be. 

It’s expected of any “elegant” and “classy” woman to don the high heel — even in children’s fairy tales (enter Cinderella, stage left), the heeled slipper is a symbol of virtue and womanliness. And at modern-day balls and red carpets, heels are the enforced shoe for female guests. The Cannes film festival actually turned away female guests who were not wearing heels — and that’s when protests began. Naomi Watts has confessed her hatred of the shoe; Mary Karr has begged us not to wear the heel and Emma Thompson has taken to the Golden Globes stage with her heels in her hand to express her hatred of the shoes — as a feminist statement. 

Long has the removal of the impossible shoe been a feminist statement about escape and the female ability to venture forth into the world with all the practicality of, dare I say it… a man. But there is also a feminist perspective in which the conscious choice to wear such a sexualised, frivolous, awkward shoe is actually a statement in itself. 

As part of my research, I spoke to some of my peers about their relationship with the shoe, to counter celebrity insights with what everyday people truly think of the controversial shoe. And while the majority had elected not to wear stilettos themselves, they all described the shoe as either classy, sexy, professional, or all three. Some even said that they could also be a little trashy — but that, that was a good thing. And when posed the question: are they empowering or not? The overwhelming answer: well, it depends on why they’re being worn. When made to wear them (as one poor participant was made to for a job at Harrods), then they feel oppressive and objectifying. But when wearing them for yourself, and you feel confident, then hell yeah, they’re empowering!

Welcome to the wonderfully wicked world of Stiletto feminism (a more radical version of lipstick feminism). In this tongue-in-cheek approach, women greedily reclaim the aspects of their femininity that have previously been used against them. Oh, you think makeup makes us dumb — we’re going to wear bright red lipstick every day. You fetishize women and simultaneously judge those who are sex workers or strippers — well we’re going to dress in the skimpiest, sexiest clothing we can find and our NO will still mean NO. You think that women dressed in girlish pinks and florals are silly and unimportant, well we have news for you. We can wear whatever the hell we want, we can subvert your stereotypes and your attempts at control, we can look like the epitome of a feminine woman and be just as masculine as ever — and we can still kick your butts… metaphorically speaking of course, we do not condone violence.

Lipstick feminism is the branch of fourth-wave feminism that embraces the typically feminine concepts of sexuality — including our sexual power, challenging older versions of feminism by showing that you can be a feminist without abandoning your sexuality or femininity, regardless of what patriarchal social conditioning birthed them. You can have it all. After all, there’s no one way to be a woman, neither is there one way to be a feminist.

Embracing and flaunting your own sexuality a la lipstick feminism can be seriously empowering. Not only are curves enhanced, height gained and swagger improved — the unflinching ambition of a sky-high pair of stilettos stomping through the room makes you feel like the most powerful person in the building. Arcangela Tarabotti, a Venetian nun, defended an early design of the stiletto in the 17th century saying, “You never find wonderful and great things on the ground, but instead placed on high, to fill others with wonder and reverence.” If it’s good enough for nuns, it’s good enough for me.

Maybe you love your stilettos because of their ability to make you feel 10 feet tall; maybe you love to slip them on when you want to seduce your partner or gain a little attention; maybe you wear them to make a fashion statement or to rebel against what is expected of you. Consider the iconic women who rock their heels and use them to their advantage: Catwoman (who yes, is fictional, but is also fabulous) responds to an annoyingly sexist question from an opponent “do those heels make it hard to walk?” with a satisfying kick and accompanying response, “I don’t know, do they?” And our good Mother Ru Paul even said that ‘flats are for quitters!’ so who are we to let down Mama Ru?

And as for whether it’s worth the pain? If pain is beauty, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then the only person who can really answer that question… is you.

credits

words — daisy riley

design — sâde popoola