WHAT A HEEL

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

I read the other day that the artifacts collected by Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, are going up for auction.  Allen died in 2018 and, as you might imagine, he collected a wide range of items.  One of the most intriguing is the “computer shoe”. It was a re-release of Puma’s 1986 running shoe with a computer chip built into the heel, sort of like an Apple Watch for your feet. Originally designed for runners to track distance, time and calories, the shoes were updated in 2018 with new features that included USB charging and Bluetooth connectivity to a smartphone. Only 86 of the shoes were released and it’s estimated that Allen’s pair will sell for between $1,000 to $2,000.  At that price, one hopes not to step in any dog poop.  Or the New York Subway, for that matter.

Reading the article about the shoes led me down a rabbit hole about shoes in general, and high heels in particular.  And my timing was good, because also making the news this week is that Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, has launched a new company, Sneex,  that produces a shoe that combines a high heel with a tennis shoe.  Brilliant!  As she says, it’s hard to change the world when your feet hurt.  As someone who pounded the pavement of San Francisco’s financial district in high heels, I can attest that a comfortable pair of shoes would have made me a lot less grouchy in meetings.  Blakely’s shoes are engineered to eliminate pain points that are common with high heels, including the narrow toe box, the pitch at which weight is distributed onto the ball of the foot, and the all-to-common gap between the heel of the foot and the shoe. They are priced between $395 to $595, which is a real bargain compared to bunion surgery.

I have heard more than once that if men had to wear high heels a shoe company like Sneex would have been invented long ago.  But as it turns out, men were the original wearers of high heels.  Yep, long before the days of stilettos and pumps, kitten heels and wedges, high-heeled shoes were worn by men. As far back as the 10th century, Persian soldiers and emissaries wore heels when riding, battling, or traveling to faraway lands. These heels weren’t for show, however; they were for function. When a soldier wore heeled boots on a horse, he was able to better steady himself and generate more balance both for riding and fighting. Persian soldiers were also able to stand upright in their stirrups, positioning their feet so the space between the heel and the sole was snug in the stirrup, which gave them an advantage in battle.

Once heels made their way to Europe in the 16th century, their purpose was much more akin to how we think of these shoes today. Men in the French, Spanish, German, and Russian courts wore heels to project height and physical stature in order to intimidate rivals and foreign diplomats in court. Sort of the modern-day equivalent of the men who put lifts in their shoes (I’m looking at you, Tom Cruise). Perhaps the best-known advocate of heels was Louis XIV, who popularized red shoes long before Christian Louboutin came along. He believed they signified power and prestige. Over time, around the beginning of the 18th century, the tables turned. Men found themselves saying, “Damn, my feet hurt!”, more often so their shoes became wider and lower.  Conversely, women’s shoes became higher, as it was thought that a bit of a shoe toe sticking out from under a skirt indicated daintiness.

These days, when it comes to shoes, I’m less concerned with looks and more interested in staying upright.  I am clumsy by nature, so I may be an early adopter of Sneex.  And I have a Baby Boomer suggestion for them: incorporate siderails on the shoe and you’ll have a huge hit at the retirement home.