with a tapered blade. Confused? Well, so was I. Let me explain...
I was rather bored this morning and was playing around on Google, surfing the web and looking to top up my brain’s ‘useless information’ folder. For some random reason I decided that I needed to know exactly what height of heel constituted a ‘stiletto’ and so I typed ‘stiletto definition’ into the search engine and hit go.
The first search result? well it wasn’t Choo or Laboutin as I expected but rather this: ‘S: (n) stiletto (a small dagger with a tapered blade).' Apparently, the style of shoe loved by woman around the globe and the cause of many an aching sole is also a name used to describe “a short knife or dagger with a long slender blade of various designs primarily used as a stabbing weapon. Its narrow shape, ending in a rigid pointed end, allows it to penetrate deeply. Most stilettos are not suited for cutting, even with edged examples. A typical early stiletto was a one-piece cast-metal handle and blade, which was then hammer-forged in a V-groove anvil, producing a triangular blade cross section without any sharpened edges.”
Other search results revealed that Stiletto is the fourth album by rock-musician Lita Ford, a 2008 direct-to-videa action film (directed, written, and produced by Nick Vallelonga), a fictional character from the Marvel Comics Universe and the enemy of Luke Cage (he first appeared in Hero for Hire #16 in December 1973).
Eventually, right at the bottom of my screen I found what I’d been looking for before I’d been distracted by knives and comic book characters – “stiletto: a type of high heel that is very narrow, often rounded. Generally not considered ‘stiletto’ unless the heel is 2 inches (approx. 5 centimeters) or higher. Generally used on pumps, but also dressy sandals and boots. A classic look. Origin: 17th Century; from Italian, from stilo a dagger, from Latin stilus a stake, pen.”
Now for a little (well, it's actually quite comprehensive) history lesson...
"Relatively thin high heels were certainly around in the late 1800s, as numerous fetish drawings attest. Firm photographic evidence exists in the form of photographs of Parisian singer Mistinguett from the 1940s. These shoes were designed byAndre Perugia, who began designing shoes in 1906. It seems unlikely that he invented the stiletto, but he is probably the first firmly documented designer of the high, slim heel. The word stiletto is derived from stylus, meaning a pin or stalk. Its usage in footwear first appeared in print in the New Statesman magazine in 1959: "She came ...forward, her walk made lopsided by the absence of one heel of the stilettos."
High heel shoes were worn by men and women courtiers. The design of the stiletto heel originally came from the late Kristin S. Wagner but would not become popular until the late 1950s. The stiletto heel came with the advent of technology using a supporting metal shaft or stem embedded into the heel, instead of wood or other, weaker materials that required a wide heel. This revival of the opulent heel style can be attributed to the designer Roger Vivier and such designs became very popular in the 1950s.
As time went on, stiletto heels became known more for their erotic nature than for their ability to make height. Stiletto heels are a common fetish item. As a fashion item, their popularity was changing over time. After an initial wave of popularity in the 1950s, they reached their most refined shape in the early 1960s, when the toes of the shoes which bore them became as slender and elongated as the stiletto heels themselves. As a result of the overall sharpness of outline, it was customary for women to refer to the whole shoe as a "stiletto", not just the heel. Although they officially faded from the scene after the Beatle era began, their popularity continued at street level, and women stubbornly refused to give them up even after they could no longer readily find them in the mainstream shops.
A version of the stiletto heel was reintroduced as soon as 1974 by Manolo Blahnik, who dubbed his "new" heel the Needle. Similar heels were stocked at the big Biba store in London, by Russell and Bromley and by smaller boutiques. Old, unsold stocks of pointed-toe stilettos, and contemporary efforts to replicate them (lacking the true stiletto heel because of changes in the way heels were by then being mass-produced) were sold in street fashion markets and became popular with punks, and with other fashion "tribes" of the late 1970s until supplies of the inspirational original styles dwindled in the early 1980s. Subsequently, round-toe shoes with slightly thicker (sometimes cone-shaped) semi-stiletto heels, often very high in an attempt to convey slenderness (the best example of this being the shoes sold in London by Derber), were frequently worn at the office with wide-shouldered power suits.
The style survived through much of the 1980s but almost completely disappeared during the 1990s, when professional and college-age women took to wearing shoes with thick, block heels. However, the slender stiletto heel staged a major comeback after 2000, when young women adopted the style for dressing up office wear or adding a feminine touch to casual wear, like jeans.
Stiletto heels are particularly associated with the image of the femme fatale. They are often considered to be a seductive item of clothing, and often feature in popular culture." (courtesy of wikipedia )
So good that they must be bad for you. Right? Well, not really...
You see, all high heels counter the natural functionality of the foot, which can create skeleton/muscular problems if they are worn excessively. “Stiletto heels are no exception, but some people assume that because they are thinner they must be worse for you. In fact, they are safer to wear than the other extreme of high heel fashion, the platform shoe.”
“Stiletto heels undoubtedly concentrate a large amount of force into a small area. The great pressure transmitted through such a heel – allegedly greater than that exerted by an elephant standing on one foot – can cause damage to carpets and floors. The stiletto heel will also sink into soft ground, making it impractical for outdoor wear on grass.” (you try telling that to the glitterati at the Durban July...)
Despite their impracticality, their popularity remains undiminished - as UK shoe designer Terry DeHavilland says, "people say they're bad for the feet but they're good for the mind. What's more important?"
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