Aug 4, 2023
A pair of brass lady bells in traditional Welsh costumes.
Note that both ladies are knitting!
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A pair of brass lady bells in traditional Welsh costumes.
Note that both ladies are knitting!
I was going to link pattens to chopines to platform heels through the ages but looking at this one pair of chopines from the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Canada, something clicked. They looked like hooves. They looked like you have to balance all your weight on the front. They looked like those heel-less platform shoes Lady Gaga was wearing at the CFDA Fashion Awards in New York, June 2011. History has repeated itself indeed.
Pattens were function: step into them wearing your normal shoes and lift yourself out of the muck of the street: mud, garbage, dung, anything you might not want to get on (or in, shudder) your nice shoes.
Chopines, dating from the Italian Renaissance, were yet another fashion of the "I'm so rich I don't have to work/move/go anywhere" school. They surely made women taller than life, grabbing attention. Women had to take tiny steps, tottering on sometimes ridiculously high platforms, often needing to be steadied and assisted by servants or whatever man accompanied them.
You see how the woman in the left of the bottom photo has Lady Gaga's hand gripped firmly? And how the man to the right has his forearm out in case she tips the other way and needs some assistance? Maybe she just took her hand off his arm so she could wave to the cameras. Needless to say, she isn't getting around on her own.
The designer of the 10-inch platform shoes is Japanese designer Noritaka Tatehana, and are said to be inspired by chopines and Japanese high wooden clogs from the Edo Period in the 19th century. They retail from $4k to 15k
Image sources:
Top image: Chopine. Italian, 1580-1620. Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto, Canada. BSM P91.80
Middle image: "Lady Bell" shoes. Designer: Noritaka Tatehana. From his Fall/Winter 2011 collection. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2026796/They-cost-15-000-Lady-Gaga-14-pairs-Meet-man-trend-gravity-defying-heel-shoes.html#ixzz3K0AstK4Y
Bottom image: Lady Gaga at June 2011 CFDA Fashion Awards in New York. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2026796/They-cost-15-000-Lady-Gaga-14-pairs-Meet-man-trend-gravity-defying-heel-shoes.html#ixzz3K0AstK4Y