High Water Shoes

After looking through all the dailies of Paris prêt-a-porter fashion week, I had really hoped to dazzle you with some eloquent explanation of the long history behind some shoe or other seen on the catwalk. However, aside from Hussein Chalayan’s astounding collection of techno-driven dresses (some presenting a kind of history of fashion in motion – one piece evolved from Dior’s Corolle Line or New Look to Paco Rabanne’s infamous armature dress of the 1960s) and Jean-Paul Gaultier’s restrospective romp featuring all his most well-known and well-loved designs of the past thirty years, Paris had very little to offer the student of fashion history and there really wasn’t much for me to choose from in the way of intriguing shoes.

Gaultier did do an interesting marriage between the Converse sneaker and a high heel, Sophia Kokosalaki’s creations looked positively unwearable and Tao Kurihara’s ballet slippers were simply sweet but not inspiring.

So I offer you this: consider the platform sandal. This past season it was once again in vogue - in fact it is rare that a year goes by that one doesn’t see at least some variation on this towering confection on the runway. But what are its origins? What culture would have embraced the improbable heights achievable through the addition of sole from heel to toe? The short answer is two-fold. Its roots can be traced to Japan and Italy – the geta and the chopine, respectively.

The chopine, for me, has always been the most interesting of the two – it is a creation of 16th century Venice, rumored to be most favored by courtesans and employed most aptly in the waterlogged streets of the city of canals. For a much more elegant description and history of the chopine, I highly recommend visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Timeline of Art History. There, curator in charge of the Costume Institute, Harold Koda, gracefully illuminates the chopine - one of the probable antecedents of today’s platform sandal.

Next week I am off to a speaking engagement in Toronto and hope to pay a visit to the Bata Shoe Museum while there. In my absence, do pay a visit to the Bata’s online museum.