Editor’s Note: Examining clothes through the ages, Dress Codes investigates how the rules of fashion have influenced different cultural arenas — and your closet.
CNN —
At Paris Fashion Week, men stepped out in heels, from pumps and slouchy boots on the Vivienne Westwood runway to the chunky loafers rapper and actor Jaden Smith wore as a guest at Louis Vuitton. It may seem like a progressive move, though there was a time where that was once the norm.
Women’s relationship with high-heeled shoes stretches back to the 17th century when it became a staple in affluent wardrobes for their ability to make feet appear smaller and daintier. But before then, they were exclusively worn by men and were a sign of virility and high social status.
By the 1970s and ‘80s, despite glam rock’s best attempts to normalize towering heels on stage, men who wanted to add height often did so in secret, with inserts concealed (sometimes poorly) in their dress shoes.
Today, the exceptions on the red carpets and runways are often seen as subverting gender norms, whether it’s fashion designer Rick Owens’ clear-heeled ‘Kiss’ platform boots, actor Jared Leto’s flair for disco-ready white or gold heels, or musician Prince’s vast collection of bedazzled and hand-painted booties. Limitations also remain: when the actor Billy Porter released a capsule collection of gender-inclusive heels with Jimmy Choo in 2021, he made a splash in a still-tiny pool of brands offering shoes in extended sizing.
Vivienne Westwood's Fall-Winter show in Paris featured men wearing heels.
Billy Porter on the red carpet for the Golden Globes in 2020 in an all-white outfit.
Jared Leto flashing a pop of gold at Gucci's 2020 show during Milan Menswear Fashion Week.
Yet, in a world where taller height is still generally considered as an attractive feature, causing some men to embellish their height on dating apps or — on the more extreme end — undergo painful leg-lengthening surgeries, it begs the question: Why aren’t heels more widely embraced by all genders?
Elizabeth Semmelhack, senior curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, which houses the largest collection of footwear in the world, dating back 4,500 years, points to the Enlightenment in the 17th and the 18th centuries, which radically shifted ideas around humanity.
15th-century Persian riding shoes. Affluent men wore heeled boots for centuries as both a practical choice and status symbol.
During this period, philosophers found common ground between men of differing socioeconomic status, but a widening gender divide. Men were defined as being active, while women were seen as decorative.
“It’s these very coded and deeply embedded concepts of gender that we still feel today,” Semmelhack explained in a phone call with CNN.
Heeled imports
Semmelhack’s research traces heels back to 10th century Western Asia — though she believes they could be much older — when they were designed to help horse riders keep their shoes in their stirrups. From the beginning, heels have been worn to imply status, but it took centuries for them to become an import to Europe through trade with Persia during the 16th century.
Men show off their heeled booties in a late 17th-century engraving made in Versailles, France.
“The concept of the heel was so connected to these ideas of equestrianism and, in the European mind, masculinity, so that’s how it ends up being translated into Western footwear,” Semmelhack explained.
In the 17th century, wealthy European men wore two kinds of heels: stacked leather (the kind seen on practical riding boots) and leather-covered (for more lavish court styles). The latter eventually migrated to women’s wear, seen today in stilettos and kitten heels, while stacked leather remains popular in cowboy boots and dress shoes. At the time, higher heels denoted higher status for men, since they were impractical for long walks or labor.
King Louis XIV in red heels is one of the most famous examples in art history.
One of the most famous depictions of ornate heels for men can be seen in Hyacinthe Rigaud’s state portrait of Louis XIV from 1701. The French monarch is resplendent in gold and blue fleur-de-lis robes and white stockings, and sporting dainty white shoes with red heels.
Known as “Les talons rouges” in French, red heels were a royal status symbol that the king limited to a select group of nobles, according to the J. Paul Getty Museum, where the painting is housed. Other works from the era show noblewomen in shoe-obscuring petticoats while men extended their legs to show off their sought-after footwear. (Centuries later, French designer Christian Louboutin’s red-lacquered soles were marketed to similar luxurious effect).
Defining gender lines
Despite the attributes assigned to male height today, the elevating features of heels were not a factor in their popularity, according to Semmelhack. Height and masculinity had not yet become entwined, but women became their sole wearers due to “a new standard of female beauty, which was small feet,” she explained. “The high heel becomes a tool within women’s fashion to lift the bulk of women’s feet up and under their skirts to make their feet look as small as possible, and the placement of the heel is very pushed forward, allowing them to leave very small footprints behind.”
Once leather-covered heels disappeared from men’s fashion, they didn’t return. By the end of the 18th century, a sweeping and sober reframing of Western masculine dress saw men move away from vibrant colors, lush textiles, variations in silhouettes and extraneous adornment — a turning point later characterized as the “Great Male Renunciation” by the British psychologist John Carl Flügel. As men turned to practical, less frivolous garments, their shoe heels also remained sensible — though not for women, whose heel heights were imbued with complex social and political implications with every added or subtracted half-inch. That aspect has been toyed with by drag artists and queer ballroom culture, where heels intensify drama and performance.
Rick Owens' runways have long featured gender-non-conforming heels.
Lil Nas X in towering platforms at the 2023 Met Gala.
“Once heels are completely feminized, they become an icon of female irrationality. Likewise, they become this icon of female desirability,” Semmelhack said. “And so, you end up with a double-edged sword.”
Men, too, face double-standards: despite the positive attributes associated with taller heights the average man worldwide is shorter than 5’8”. Some world leaders and public figures have maintained the illusion with shoe lifts, step-platforms and even judiciously placed shorter crowds, going to great lengths for a little more height.
Heels may be a more elegant solution, but the taboo remains — despite the fact that many heeled styles seen as daring on men aren’t actually feminine at all, Semmelhack noted.
“People talk about it as super gender-bending,” she said. “But is it really, or is it just a reclamation of historic male fashions from the past?”
