The Platform Shoe History and Post WWII

The Platform Shoe – History and Post WWII By Martha Rucker Cave drawings from more than 15,000 years ago show humans with animal skins or furs wrapped around their feet. 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 shoe continues. Platform shoes (also known as Disco Boots) are shoes, boots, or sandals with thick soles at least four inches in height, often made of cork, plastic, rubber, or wood. Wooden-soled platform shoes are technically also known as clogs. They have been worn in various cultures since ancient times for fashion or for added height After their use in Ancient Greece for raising the height of important characters in the Greek theatre and their similar use by high-born prostitutes or courtesans in Venice in the 16th Century, platform shoes are thought to have been worn in Europe in the 18th century to avoid the muck of urban streets. Of the same practical origins are the Japanese geta, a form of traditional Japanese footwear that resembles both clogs and flip-flops There may also be a connection to the buskins of Ancient Rome, which frequently had very thick soles to give added height to the wearer. During the Qing Dynasty, aristocrat Manchu women wore a form of platform shoe similar to 16th century Venetian chopine, a type of women's platform shoe that was popular in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries which were used to protect the shoes and dress from mud and street soil. Then, high soles were a necessity to keep the feet off of the dirty streets. Today, they are worn strictly for fashion’s sake Geta Buskin Chopine Platform shoes enjoyed some popularity in the United States, Europe and the UK in the 1930s, 1940s, and very early 1950s, but not nearly to the extent of their popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, when the biggest, and most prolonged, platform shoe fad in U.S. history began as early as 1970. This fad continued through the late-1980s. At the beginning of the fad, they were worn primarily by young women in their teens and twenties, and occasionally by younger girls and older women. Although they did provide added height without the discomfort of spike heels, they seem to have been worn primarily for the sake of attracting attention. Many rock musicians wore platform shoes as part of their act. Platform sandals Lucite platforms Platform sneakers While a wide variety of styles were popular during this period, the most popular style of the early 1970s was a simple quarter-strap sandal with light tan water buffalo-hide straps on a beige suede-wrapped cork wedge-heel platform sole. It was originally introduced under the brand name, "Kork-Ease," As the fad progressed, manufacturers introduced "comfort" platforms, designed to combine the added height of platforms with the support and comfort of sneakers. By the time the fad finally fizzled in the late 1980s, girls and women of all ages were wearing them. It may also be a by-product of this fad that Scandinavian clogs which were considered rather outrageous in the early 1970s, had become "classic" by the 1980s. Even the mystical Chinese practice of foot binding has been copied. Some European women and men in the past bound their feet with tape and squashed them into too-tight shoes. In fact, a survey from the early 1990s reported that 88 percent of American women wear shoes that are too small! Thanks to Lady Gaga we’re seeing a resurgence of the Platform shoe. Resource: Wikipedia .

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