High heel shoes are a fashion phenomenon that inspire wonder. Why is it that these shoes, in particular, have come to be synonymous with femininity and seduction? A look back in history reveals that they have not always been gender-coded in this way. High heels were once associated with masculinity and power at the highest level.

Heels affect both how you feel and how you are perceived by those around you. Just like many other objects of fashion, this creates a paradox. High heels give you confidence, signal power and sexuality. They radiate luxury. Anyone who can move freely in them must live a rarefied life far removed from humdrum everyday tasks; unsuitable for walking long distances, they signal a lifestyle of elegance. At the same time, women in high heels can be seen as unsteady, helpless and voluntarily constrained.

Yes, it did start with functionality

Although high-heeled shoes may seem impractical, it was for their functionality that shoes were first fitted with heels. Life became simpler for Asian horsemen once heels provided a firm grip on the stirrups.

High heels became an important part of Western male fashion in the late 16th century. The inspiration may have come from the Persian embassies that came to Europe to forge political alliances. The short, puffy trousers of Spanish fashion placed particular emphasis on men’s legs as they were displayed in tight-fitting silk stockings and elegant high-heeled latchet shoes with large rosettes known as shoe roses. 

Long, strong, slender legs, which were often portrayed in portraits with one from the front and one from the side, emphasised prowess in activities such as fencing and dancing, yet without any suggestion of the toil of real labour.

The high heels were regulated by sumptuary laws

During the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), military influences made themselves felt in portraiture. Even the bucket-topped Cavalier boots turned down below the knee and lace-adorned boothose had high heels.

Lace, embroidery, plumes, patterned silk fabrics, jewels that to a modern observer might appear far removed from ingrained ideals of masculinity, were perceived by contemporaries as symbols of power and bravery in dress comparable to bravery on the battlefield. High-heeled shoes were part of the power dressing designed for princes and aristocrats. The fact that the French King Louis XIV was short in stature probably contributed to his fondness for tall, curly wigs and high heels. Red heels became a special privilege that distinguished the King’s courtiers, the height of which were regulated by sumptuary laws.

Exposed legs were a male attribute. Women’s legs were always covered by long skirts, yet 17th century female fashion was influenced by what men wore in the form of masculine hats and high heels.

Impractical and exorbitant garments were an important part of how early modern elites manifested their elevated status.

The social order demanded visible differences between people of different estates – erasure of these differences would have been socially destabilising.

Platform shoes and chopines in the 17th century

The platform shoes worn by women in Spain and Italy in the 15th to 17th centuries proved to be another important influence. Perhaps the most famous example is the Venetian chopines, which could tower as high as 35 cm. This was originally a type of wooden shoe with a high sole that was worn on top of ordinary shoes to raise the wearer above the dirty, waterlogged streets. In the 17th century, they became a luxuriously designed piece of fashion.

The 18th century and female irrationality

During the 18th century, interest in men’s shoes waned while other aspects of dress came into focus. Shoes with high heels that were narrower and more difficult to manoeuvre in became more common for women. Ideals changed and heels became more associated with female irrationality than male prowess. Under the influence of Enlightenment thought, political capacity came to be seen in direct conflict with ostentatious dress, while women’s fashionable attire rather came to manifest their lack of political power. This is despite the fact that the 18th century continued to be strongly influenced by notions of the clear links between social status and clothing.

Heels named after the French King’s mistress

High-heeled shoes were worn to accompany the bulky fashions of the 18th century, which shaped the female body with laced-up corsets made with whalebone and enlarged hips with the help of skirt-supports. Shoes, covered in patterned silks or heavy metallic embroidery, matched the dresses. Mules with no backs or latchet tie shoes dominated footwear fashion.

The heel breast– the forward-facing side of the heel – was often curved under the foot, a shape later known as pompadour heels after the French King’s official mistress Madame de Pompadour.

Heels were higher during the first half of the 18th century, only to go lower during the second half. Together with the rest of a person’s attire, shoes provided a particular balance and posture to the body central to the complex pattern of movement that distinguished the upper classes from the hunched backs of the working class of the 18th century.

The body was supposed to sway lightly and movements be fluid, neither too quick nor too slow. Everything was carefully rehearsed but was supposed to be carried out effortlessly and naturally. The swaying gait of the French queen Marie Antoinette, even in her heavy court dresses with metre-long trains, became the ideal. During the 18th century, consumer culture grew stronger and fashionable clothing became more available in the cities.

Taking lessons from a dancing master to practise the correct movements, including the art of walking, was a less easily bought skill and therefore the ultimate aristocratic status symbol.

The erotic undertone of the high-heeled shoe was strengthened during the 19th century

After a long period of flat shoes, inspired by more bourgeois ideals in the first decades of the 19th century, by the mid-19th century high-heeled shoes were once more in fashion, both on everyday ankle boots and evening shoes. Long, heavy skirts with bustles at the back hid women’s legs, but their gait was still supposed to be delicate, their posture upright and the protruding foot small. High heels were a visual trick that gave the feet a daintier appearance. Women’s feet became alluring, and the erotic charge of the high-heeled shoe was reinforced by its role in the pornographic photographs of the time.

High-heeled shoes, an unattainable luxury

Specially designed sewing machines with several technical inventions transformed shoemaking, making shoes cheaper and more accessible to a wider market by the mid-19th century. In the countryside, however, shoes remained a rare commodity. Well into the 20th century, children in Skåne still went to school in rough, straw-filled wooden clogs and in the summer they went barefoot. It is easy to understand why high heels were an unattainable luxury. Sweden’s path to becoming a modern society was, in part, through industrially produced footwear. In the 1930s, there were over 300 factories providing the Swedish people with shoes.

Renewal in the shape of the heel

With shorter skirts in the 1920s, women’ legs came into focus in a whole new way. Fashionable attire was completed with elegant, shapely legs clad in silk stockings and high-heeled shoes, often with a t-shaped latchet or double straps across the ankle. Stocking seams extended the line from the heel and drew the eye up the legs. Interest in shoe design grew with renowned designers such as André Perugia, responsible for the shoes for fashion designer Paul Poiret’s garments. Imaginative, innovative and inspired by the fashion and art of the time, the shoes became sculptures. Experimenting with the shape of the heel became a way to renew designs, such as the wedge heel of the 1930s by Salvatore Ferragamo.

Christian Dior and ”the New Look”

After the Second World War, Christian Dior launched the “New Look”. Shoes with stiletto heels were worn with the provocatively full skirts of the 1950s. High, narrow heels became possible with a metal rod embedded in the plastic heel. The fashionable shoe designer Rogier Vivier collaborated closely with Dior.

Through stills, the film industry with its sexy, busty movie stars, spread the new fashion ideal effectively. On the silver screen, everyone could see their idols up close, what clothes they wore and how they should be worn. Department stores shortened the path to consumers. Narrow stiletto heels and pointed toes were now the order of the day, even though they could leave unsightly marks on parquet flooring or easily get stuck between paving stones. Marilyn Monroe’s favourite shoe was a Ferragamo model with 11 cm high heels.

The fast way to a man’s heart

For the “everyday film star” promoted by the corset industry, stiletto heels were another must. The high heel was thus more widely worn than before, and now tottering on high heels was now added to the general expectations placed on women.

No woman could consider herself properly dressed without a corset, hat, handbag, gloves and high-heeled shoes – shoes that were also marketed as the way to a man’s heart. The 1950s style of shoe set a standard that is still very much relevant today.

Pop stars challenged the traditional gender norms

With the 1960s and 70s focus on more youthful, natural fashion and women’s equality, fashion ideals for women were seen as oppressive and archaic. Like shaping underwear, high-heeled shoes lost popularity. At the same time, heels came into focus in new ways, with artists such as the Beatles, David Bowie and ABBA performing in high stack heels and challenging traditional gender norm.

Carrie Bradshaw and Sex and the City turned “Manolos” into a turn of phrase

To the power dressing of the 1980s, with wide shoulder pads and a new vision of financial success and luxury, high-heeled shoes and boots also brought added sex and potency to fashion. The high heels that had been part of the housewife ideal were now proving successful in the world of work.

In the 1990s and 2000s, a new generation of shoe designers such as Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo and Christian Louboutin became well known for their glamorous high-heeled shoes. The TV series Sex and the City turned “Manolos” into a turn of phrase. At Louboutin, the heels towered ever higher and their red soles made the shoes easily recognisable.

Even established fashion designers like Vivienne Westwood have include pioneering shoe designs in their collections. Naomi Campbell’s fall during on the catwalk of Westwood’s show in 1993 is legendary.

Today, when overconsumption, luxury, stereotypical representations of gender and bodies and the existence of fashion itself are under discussion, our relationship with high-heeled shoes is multifaceted. This autumn’s fashion weeks showed that shoe design is a vital part of fashion. Models striding in high heels at Valentino swayed, wobbled and fell most involuntarily, revealing glamour as sullied and detached from the world.

Swedish Beate Karlsson of AVAVAV, known for her boundary-pushing, animal-like shoes, parodically let all the models fall like ninepins during her show instead.

When wearing high heels is a matter of choice, the joy of fashion also increases

Old conventions linked to shoes, status and luxury are being challenged. For women, sneakers can now be worn in the most formal of settings. When wearing high heels is a matter of choice, the joy of fashion also increases. At the same time, traditional cultural conventions persist. Men in heels, balancing on their toes, are mostly only seen on the dance floor.

Probably not that many men in heels at the Christmas party

Height and power are still linked, which, in their time, both Prince Charles and France’s then-President Nicolas Sarkozy handled in a conspicuous way. Fashion is about renewal and is said to reflect its time, but nevertheless is also impervious to change and conservative. As long as high heels themselves are not imbued with new cultural significance, we seem a long way off seeing men in high heels in Swedish urban environments or at the annual Christmas party.

Text: Pernilla Rasmussen, Fashion Science

Author’s Christmas gift tip:

Shoes – an illustrated History by Rebecca Shawcross.

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There cannot be many people in Sweden who failed to notice this year – and in particular this summer – that there was a centenary celebration of the birth of one of the greatest Swedish entertainers of the 1900s: Povel Ramel, born on 5 June 1922. The celebrant has been posthumously acclaimed with everything from a postage stamp issue and a two-hour TV special on SVT to a number of live shows around the country featuring material from his rich output, including several in Lund, where there is also an active local branch of the Povel Ramel Society, which preserves his memory.

But – sticklers for relevance may ask – is a publication for and about alumni from Lund University really the right forum to highlight Povel Ramel, no matter how popular he was – since he never studied in Lund? No, it is true: Povel studied neither in Lund nor at any other Swedish university. The fact is that he did not even complete secondary education, as he chose to drop out when he was at grammar school. In addition, he was born and raised in Stockholm, went to school in Sigtuna and lived the greater part of his adult life on the island of Lidingö – all at a substantial distance from the university city of Lund. Nevertheless, I consider there are reasons to claim that there are fully sufficient links between Ramel and academic Lund to justify this article.

A distinctive audience

One such natural link is, of course, that as an artist frequently on tour, Povel Ramel performed several times in Lund. In his memoir, Som om inget hade hänt (1999), when he reflects on how audience behaviour varies between places, the Lund audience gets a top grade:

Of course, Lund with its proximity to Malmö and its sprinkling of sprightly university folk cannot be regarded as a truly small town. There, I have also encountered a particularly appreciative audience every time, but also noted that the reactions to my shows have come in unusual places.

For example, Wenche Myhre and I performed POW SHOW II at the Academic Society’s main auditorium. Our rap number “I dig you” contains a line that describes our exact relation to clothes and manners: “Potatoes like potatoes, yum, yum, yum”. Before, that line had usually passed by unnoticed, but in Lund it sparked an enormous laugh, just in Lund, just that time – nowhere else, ever!

It could also be claimed that Povel Ramel had a deeper connection and affiliation to Lund in the form of his link to the heritage of humour. The fact that one of the great and style-forming Lund humourists Axel Wallengren – alias Falstaff, fakir – was one of Povel’s sources of inspiration is no secret. It is something that Povel himself pointed out by describing a whole section of his book Min galna hage (1957) as having been produced in a “strong Fakir-inspired state”. There are further examples of both direct borrowings from, and allusions to, Falstaff, fakir in Ramel’s texts, but above all a deeper, spiritual affinity between the two humourists has been creditably examined by the Lund-based cultural writer Lars Westerberg (“Povel Ramel och Fakiren och den humoristiska kungslinjen”, published in Fakirenstudier XXII, 2008).

Lund Faculty of Law alumni in the family

However, Ramel’s Lund links existed not least in a large number of friendship ties with people in Lund, most of them with a deep connection to the city’s student life. This article will cover a selection of these personal connections between Povel and academic Lund.

The earliest Lund connections in Ramel’s life can be found in his own family. This is not so remarkable as the original Pomeranian and subsequently Danish noble family Ramel was already well established in Skåne when the province became Swedish. Over the centuries, the Ramel family have owned and lived in a large number of manors in Skåne such as Bäckaskog, Maltesholm, Widerup and Övedskloster, and many of the family’s children were sent to study at Lund University. A modern example is Fanny Ramel – carnival general in 2014. Going further back, Povel’s father, Baron Karl Johan Henrik Ramel, born in 1889 in Löberöd, was enrolled as a student in Lund in the autumn semester of 1908. Karl Ramel would spend five years in Lund and during that time complete Bachelor’s degrees in both Philosophy and Law. This was particularly impressive as in parallel he was also training to become an army officer: Ramel senior became a sub-lieutenant in 1909 and a lieutenant in the reserve forces in 1914, as part of the Wendes Artillery Regiment. Although obviously diligent in tackling this range of studies, it clearly did not prevent Karl Ramel from also participating in the amusements of student life. The carnival procession in 1912 included a group of students portraying scouts, and a list of participants in the Academic Society archive shows that Karl Ramel was chosen to play the founder of the Scouting movement, Lord Baden-Powell.

We do not know how much Karl subsequently told his son about student life in Lund, but we do know that they shared the same sense of humour. This is evident from privately recorded 78 rpm records on which the father and son performed sketches together. The father’s more long-term influence on Povel would, however, come to a tragic end: he and his wife Märta died of complications from a car accident when Povel was just a teenager.

However, there was another close relative with a Lund connection: Povel’s eight-year older half-brother Wilhelm Stiernstedt. In his first memoir, Följ mej bakåt vägen (1992), Povel describes the considerable influence of his elder brother: “I have used his know-how, his thought processes, his views on things, his way of speaking and very special wit for as long as I can remember”, writes Povel. Furthermore, he states that his brother spent time “partying in Lund”, yes “even over-partying, if we are being honest”. Exactly what this meant for Povel is not something he goes into in his memoirs, but he did, however, when taking part in a crowded student evening in Lund in 1999: that his brother Wilhelm was in Lund meant that Povel had plenty of reasons to visit the city at a young age, even though it wasn’t to study. No, declared Povel: it was during these years, with visits to parties and carnivals, that for him Lund became synonymous with celebrations. “I have never taken a serious breath here”, he happily confessed.

A gem from Skåne

In addition to purely familial connections with the city, Povel Ramel would build up a large circle of friends in Lund over the years. A prominent place in this circle was taken by a man who Povel first met in Malmö in 1948 while participating in one of his earliest revues – a show produced by the former Lund spex performer and carnival general in 1946 “Dubbel-Olle” Ohlsson (like Povel’s father Karl and brother Wilhelm a Lund Faculty of Law alumnus) – and who went by the name of Sten Broman. Povel described him as “a gem from Skåne”.

This is not the place to go into a detailed account of the friendship between Sten Broman and Povel Ramel. This is covered in a chapter of the previously-mentioned memoir Som om inget hade hänt and in a chapter by Povel in the book Sten Broman – En man med kontrapunkter (1984). However, suffice it to say that Broman was definitely one of those who very actively helped to regularly attract Povel to Lund. This certainly applied to Lund carnivals, where for many years the two friends could be seen together on the jury for the student orchestra competition that traditionally opens the event. In the carnival context it can also be mentioned that Povel took part in not one, but two, carnival films: “Men hur?” (1962) and “Lystnaden” (1966). The latter was connected with an event organised by Sten Broman and Uarda-akademien, called “Höje å-bragden” (an attempt to reach Lund by boat), which played an important role in the film.

Broman could not reasonably admit Povel to the spex performers’ academy, Uarda-akademien, which he had himself founded, but could to another society he established – the Gastronomic Academy. Here, Broman and Povel were in the company of another prominent but somewhat older alumnus of Lund University and its Faculty of Law, Fritiof Nilsson Piraten. He was also among Povel’s Lund friends. Povel has recounted that when they first met, Piraten started their conversation by saying “I knew your father – very well”. A good icebreaker certainly, but possibly also a sign of Piraten’s lack of respect for the truth at times, considering that Piraten did not start his law studies in Lund before the spring of 1914 – the semester after Karl Ramel had completed his!

On a bear hunt in Copenhagen

In Povel Ramel’s TV series “Semlons gröna dalar” (1977) a lanky man in black with a plum-coloured top appears now and then in the background without explanation or saying any lines. The role was created by spex performer and Lund Faculty of Law alumnus, Hugo “Låppan” Hagander, a stage persona known for a “very headstrong and expressive way of delivering lines and the body language  of a snake-man”. In addition to this TV series, “Låppan” also appeared in minor roles in a few of Povel’s stage productions such as “Dax igen” (1962–63) and “De sista entusiasterna” (1968). The gentlemen socialised privately in contexts such as the small society founded ostensibly for bear hunters in 1962 called “Björnjägarna”. “Låppan” was far from the only Lund figure in this exclusive company. There was also Eric Owers, Lund Faculty of Law alumnus, entertainment manager at Liseberg, carnival general in 1962 and at times Povel’s lawyer, as well as zoology professor and Lund spex performer Bengt-Olof Landin. Something that should be mentioned in this context is the “bear hunt” the gentlemen took part in was at a shooting range at Tivoli in Copenhagen, and that the subsequent food and drink intake probably had a more central role than the hunt itself… 

However, the name that must be mentioned, last but not least, in this list of Povel Ramel’s Lund friends is Hans Folke “Hasse” Alfredson. The two gentlemen met for the first time in the 1950s when, as a young volunteer at the Öresundsposten newspaper, Hasse was to interview Povel in connection with a performance in Helsingborg – and by mistake initially interviewed for a long while the above-mentioned brother Wilhelm, who happened to be in the same hotel room! Later, Hasse and Povel would get together in rather more professional forms. Before the comedy duo Hasse and Tage had created their own company Svenska ord, they both worked for Povel’s revue series Knäppupp, and Hasse also appeared in the revue “Semestersångarna” (1961). A lot later – after Tage Danielson’s death – the gentlemen would resume their stage collaboration in the long-running show “Tingel Tangel på Tyrol” (1989–90).

Between Povel’s and Hasse’s public performances they also became close personal friends and it was probably due to this that Hasse Alfredson took the initiative for the above-mentioned student evening 1999 in which he and Povel held a packed audience spellbound at the Academic Society’s main auditorium with anecdotes about themselves and their partnership. Povel had also written a new song as a tribute to Lund, which he premiered to the tune of “Til The End Of The World”. In the song’s introduction, Ramel describes himself as “a kind of happy Pavlov’s dog” with a “tail that wags when I arrive in Lund”, and after listing a number of his Lund acquaintances – most of whom have been previously mentioned in this article – he finished with the following two verses:

Even though I am mostly sober and sound

a party arises in Lund whenever I am around

– The city’s daily attire may be buttoned-up, but there’s always something hilarious showing –

I never studied for a moment

what the old tomes meant –

But, although I have not been here even for a second,

it feels lovely to LAND IN LUND

What Hasse, but not Povel, already knew when this song was performed was the student evening in question would be crowned with a very special Lund honour for the latter. At the end of the official programme, a horde of men and women in white coats rushed forward, in the form of the Academic Society’s “Nasal Committee”. All so as to take a cast of the guest entertainer’s nose – a so-called “nosification” – and add it to the society’s Nasotek; a collection of noses initiated by Hasse himself in 1986. And it is still possible to see Povel’s hooter as “Nose no 90”, surrounded by masses of other noses belonging to various more or less well-known Lund figures. And, regardless of the number of credits that were never earned, can there be any better way of being incorporated in the academic and student fabric of Lund than that?

Text: Fredrik Tersmeden

Archivist at Lund University Archives (and Nose no 89, hanging just next to Povel)