EVOLUTION OF WOMEN FOOTWEARBy:bisman and gurarpan

INTRODUCTION

• Spanish cave drawings from more than 15,000 years ago show humans with animal skins or furs wrapped around their feet. The body of a well-preserved “ice-man” nearly 5,000 years old wears leather foot coverings stuffed with straw. Shoes, in some form or another, have been around for a very long time. The evolution of foot coverings, from the sandal to present-day athletic shoes that are marvels of engineering, continues even today as we find new materials with which to cover our feet.

• Shoes in general have typically served as markers of gender, class, race, and ethnicity

• No other shoe, however, has gestured toward leisure, sexuality, and sophistication as much as the high-heeled shoe

• our shoe fashions of today are, for the most part, modernised adaptations of past styles

HISTORY

• During ancient Egypt time shoes were only worn by higher classes.

• In ancient Greece and Rome, platform sandals called kothorni, later known as buskinsin the Renaissance were popular.

• 1400s, chopines, or platform shoes, were created in Turkey and were popular throughout Europe until the mid-1600s

• in the mid 1500s after Catherine de Medici made The simple riding heel made them than more fashionable functional.

Formal Invention of High Heels as Fashion

• The formal invention of high heels as fashion is typically attributed to the rather short-statured Catherine de Medici (1519-1589)

• to dazzle the French nation and compensate for her perceived lack of aesthetic appeal, she donned heels two inches high

• Her heels were a wild success and soon high heels were associated with privilege.

•In the early 1700s, France's King Louis XIV (The Sun King) would often wear intricate heels decorated with miniature battle scenes. Called “Louis heels,” they were often as tall as five inches. •French Revolution and the Revolt against High Heels in 1791.•In the 1860s, heels as fashion became popular again, and the invention of the sewing machine allowed greater variety in high heels

Twentieth century

• While high heels enjoyed widespread popularity in the late nineteenth century, early twentieth-century women demanded more comfortable, flat-soled shoes.

• The Depression during the 1930s influenced Western shoe fashion as heels became lower and wider.

• In the 1940s, luxury items were in short supply due to WWII

•The revival of Western high fashion in the post-war 1950s was led by French designer Christian Dior and his collaboration with shoe designer Roger Vivier.

•With the creation of the miniskirt in the early 1960s, stilettos were attached to boots

•Platform shoes became immensely popular in the 1970s•feminists in the 1980s, argued that fashion can be an experiment with appearances, an experiment that challenges cultural meaning.

•early 1990s new designers started to rethink high heels

Today's 21st century

• Women in the 21st century have more shoe choices than ever before

• There is a large variety of shoes available for women, in addition to most of the men's styles being more accepted as unisex. Some broad categories are:

1. High-heeled footwear2. Sneaker boot3. Mules etc.