STANDING TALL, THE STILETTO HEEL AS MATERIAL MEMORY: A CONTEMPORARY CROSS-CULTURAL LOOK AT PERCEPTIONS OF THE STILETTO HEEL FRANCESCA D’ANGELO A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HUMANITIES YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO 1 To my sweetest thing, Sofia Negro, who I hope will never fear the things she chooses to wear, I dedicate this manifesto. 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As I compile this list of acknowledgments, I feel both this overwhelming sense of relief, excitement, giddy joy as well as a bit of a heavy heart as this point confirms for me that this thesis has in fact reached its end. All those close ties I built while compiling this work, all the beautiful links this project help build with wonderful people who admired, supported or informed my work in a myriad of ways, like Professors Susan Ingram, Markus Reisenleitner, Steve Bailey, Kevin Dowler, will in some ways come undone; and when people now ask “what’s your PhD on” I’ll have to answer in past tense, or when they ask “what are you working on?” who knows what I’ll now say? But to stray from melancholic meanderings, I turn to that green light, to the promise of the future and say thank you to all the wonderful people I have met along the way and to hope that this is not just an end but just a part of our continuum. Firstly, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Professor Susan Ingram, my supervisor, whose continued support and emotional and professional guidance during my PhD research was what helped catapult this thesis to completion. And, if what you read within these pages pleases your ear and your mind, its flow and organization is all owed to her relentless and meticulous editing. Without her pushing me forward, believing in me, this PhD thesis would have remained a dream, haunting my memories and plaguing me with guilt. So to her I owe more than just a thank you. To the rest of my thesis committee, Professor Steven Bailey and Professor Kevin Dowler, I would like to thank for their intellectual support, and also for their prompt 3 replies and insightful comments. To Steve, I thank for his extensive knowledge of research methods. And to Kevin, I thank his unwavering curiosity for challenging me to dig deeper into those slightly uncomfortable theoretical angles I may have wanted to overlook. A sincere thanks is owed to Professor Markus Reisenleitner, whose technical support helped me out of numerous technological glitches. In addition, to both Susan and Markus I owe a special thanks not only for their hospitality but for providing me with Mac – that great little ‘thing’ that kept me company, travelled to and fro across the Atlantic with me, and who never let me down, keeping all my files and virtual thoughts safe from calamities. I thank also our dear friend Professor Alberto Alvisi from L’Universita di Padua, whose in depth discussions over long strolls in centro Bologna, on the manner of Italian economics, politics, culture and of course food, helped enrich my own understanding of Italian complexities. I would also like to thank Francesca Piani, who on behalf of the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo provided me with pivotal information and images. And to Elizabeth Semmelhack, the curator of the Bata Shoe Museum, I would like to thank for her review of the first two chapters, and her invaluable suggestions and references. I would also like to thank all the wonderful women who made this research possible. To my dear friends, family, colleagues, I thank for sharing with me their intimate shoe stories. The list is long, but they all know who they are, and I am forever indebted to them. Without their experiences, their stories, this would not have come to fruition. Also, to those who matter most, who have made this endeavour all worthwhile: my family, I say a humble thanks. To my daughter, Sofia Negro, whose wisdom surpasses her tender age of two, and who sat silently by as I tried to bring this to a close, I say thank you 4 for coming into my life and for all your patience, amore mio. To my parents, who did a marvelous job taking care of Sofia during this time, cushioning her with all the love a little heart could hold, I cannot express my gratitude. If I learned what it means to work hard and to never give up, that is owed to my mother, whose years of relentless hard work as an orphan and single immigrant mother, to ensure my brother and I could have that which she could have only dreamed of having, I hope all her efforts feel justified as she looks at us today. To my father I owe my love of collecting ‘things’, particularly shoes. To my mother and father in law, I thank for believing in me and for our brilliant discussions on Italian history and culture. I thank my brother and sister-in-law for all their love and support and for being our witnesses. To Sergio Negro, my love, I do not have the words to express my gratitude and devotion for showing me what patience means and for encouraging me when everything felt so arduous and insurmountable. And credit needs to also be paid to all the instances where your pragmatism helped reel me out of the theoretical rabbit holes I had fallen into. I love you, amore. Alla mia intera famiglia, se tutto questo si e’ avverato lo devo a voi, alla vostra forza e amore che mi hanno tenuta a galla in tutti questi anni di studio. Concludere questa dissertazione rappresenta un modo per dimostrarvi tutto l’orgoglio e amore che provo per voi. Non passa un giorno che io non ringrazi quelle forze piu grandi di noi che ci hanno uniti in questo mondo. 5 ABSTRACT Employing a material culture analysis, this dissertation functions as a general compendium on the stiletto heel, as it recounts the history of the stiletto from its introduction as a technological marvel in the post-WWII period to its present-day manifestations as a glamourous accessory. It surveys women’s relations to stiletto heels and the reasons why women wear, and do not wear, them. Through a comparative cross-cultural analysis, the study examines a group of Canadian and Italian women’s uses and perceptions of stiletto heels, and reveals cultural distinctions manifested in their uses and interpretations of stilettos. The women’s personal relations to and cultural interpretations of the stiletto were measured through a phenomenological analysis of material collected through surveys, interviews and online forums. The study also considers the general sentiments stilettos engender in regard to the portrayal of women in society and the feminist discourses that the stiletto challenges and reinforces. 6 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..................................................................................................................... 3 ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................................... 6 Prologue: My Personal Ode To Heels ....................................................................................... 12 Introduction: Of All Things! Heels?! ......................................................................................... 20 Section 1: History ........................................................................................................................... 37 Chapter 1: The Origins of the Stiletto and the (Gendered) Making of Shoes ................. 37 What’s in a Name? .............................................................................................................................37 Other High Heels ................................................................................................................................44 Enter the Stiletto Heel......................................................................................................................47 What Exactly Does A Stiletto Look Like? ...................................................................................53 The Stiletto in Ads ................................................................................................................................................ 55 The Stiletto’s Construction.............................................................................................................65 Who Designed This Thing Anyway? ............................................................................................68 The Designer is Born: A “Male” Thing? ......................................................................................83 The French Dior ..................................................................................................................................................... 86 The Italian Ferragamo ........................................................................................................................................ 89 Designers’ Rights ...............................................................................................................................91 Designer Bodies, or Women by Design ......................................................................................95 Women Shoemakers? Can There Be?! .................................................................................... 105 Conclusion......................................................................................................................................... 112 Chapter 2: Modern Working Girls’ Shoes ..............................................................................114