Medieval dandy (c. 1450)
Although no one quite knows why, where or how the trend started, at some point in the 12th century, the long toe shoe - known as a poulaine - became all the rage amongst medieval Europeans.
Whatever their origin, their popularity was so great that they remained in fashion (in as much as this term means anything with reference to a pre-modern world where styles changed at a snail's pace) for several centuries during the Middle Ages; achieving their most extreme form in the late-14th and early-15th century when the toe length extended by an outrageous twenty-four inches (transforming two feet into four).
In order to provide rigidity and help keep their shape, toes were often stuffed with moss, wool, hair or grass. Alternatively, they could be supported with whalebone. Young men of leisure would often combine their favoured footwear with a provocatively short tunic (as seen in the image above). Predictably, there was vociferous opposition from all the usual quarters to these beautifully bonkers, fabulously frivolous and pointlessly pointed shoes.
In a recent post on the Victoria and Albert Museum's blog, Ruth Hibbard writes:
"They were decried by the Church as sinful for their phallic shape ... [and] their impracticality was seen as leading to laziness or incapacity. ... They were also thought to be too showy to be modest or decent."
The ruling elite, also concerned by the popularity of poulaines, introduced laws regulating toe length by social class; the longest being the preserve of the nobility (commoners were permitted no more than a mere six-inches).
Eventually, however, the fashion in footwear finally changed and, by the end of the 15th century, short, square toe shoes were the in-thing. But poulaines continue to haunt the cultural imagination and every now and then they make a reappearance; in a very modest form as winklepickers in the 1950s and - currently and far more spectacularly - as botas picudas mexicanas, which can have an extended toe length of up to sixty inches (transforming two feet into seven).
See: Ruth Hibbard, 'Getting To The Point Of Medieval Shoes' (July 9, 2015), Victoria and Albert Museum Blog: click here.
In order to provide rigidity and help keep their shape, toes were often stuffed with moss, wool, hair or grass. Alternatively, they could be supported with whalebone. Young men of leisure would often combine their favoured footwear with a provocatively short tunic (as seen in the image above). Predictably, there was vociferous opposition from all the usual quarters to these beautifully bonkers, fabulously frivolous and pointlessly pointed shoes.
In a recent post on the Victoria and Albert Museum's blog, Ruth Hibbard writes:
"They were decried by the Church as sinful for their phallic shape ... [and] their impracticality was seen as leading to laziness or incapacity. ... They were also thought to be too showy to be modest or decent."
The ruling elite, also concerned by the popularity of poulaines, introduced laws regulating toe length by social class; the longest being the preserve of the nobility (commoners were permitted no more than a mere six-inches).
Eventually, however, the fashion in footwear finally changed and, by the end of the 15th century, short, square toe shoes were the in-thing. But poulaines continue to haunt the cultural imagination and every now and then they make a reappearance; in a very modest form as winklepickers in the 1950s and - currently and far more spectacularly - as botas picudas mexicanas, which can have an extended toe length of up to sixty inches (transforming two feet into seven).
See: Ruth Hibbard, 'Getting To The Point Of Medieval Shoes' (July 9, 2015), Victoria and Albert Museum Blog: click here.
