The Art of the Shoe. Marie-Josèphe Bossan
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reach fifty-two centimeters high. The platforms themselves were of wood or cork and covered in velvet or richly decorated leather. Hidden under skirts, the shoes remained safe from scrutiny, but they resulted in a very comical walk. Hoisted upon such shoes, noblewomen had to support themselves between the shoulders of two servants in order to get around safely. This eccentric fashion certainly originated in Turkey, a country with which the Doges of the Republic traded. Turkish women were known to go to the bath on raised soles. Through the modified form of the chopine a Turkish harem shoe thus entered the palaces of Venetian aristocrats.
The wearing of chopines was banned in Spain by the archbishop of Talavera, who labeled women who wore them “depraved and dissolute.” The more tolerant Italian church, on the other hand, failed to blacklist the shoe. Quite contrarily, the church, in collusion with jealous husbands, saw a way to immobilize fickle wives at home, and thereby stymie illicit affairs. Although all the courts of Europe were taken with the chopine, the shoe was never more than a limited fashion. It nevertheless managed to reach England, where Shakespeare’s Hamlet says: “Your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the altitude of a chopine” (Hamlet, Act II, Scene II).
The pantoufle, or mule, was a more moderate style imported from Italy that was first adopted in France in the early 16th century. Made of a thick cork sole without rear quarter, its lightness made it especially suitable for women to wear indoors.
From the reign of Francis I (1494–1547) to Henry III (1551–1589), men and women wore shoes called escarfignons. Also known as eschappins, these were flat slippers of satin or velvet with low-cut uppers and slashes. The horizontal and vertical slashes revealed the precious fabric of the stockings underneath. Rabelais (1494–1553) describes the shoes exactly in Gargantua, when he recounts the costumes of the Abbey of Thélème: “The shoes, slippers and mules of crimson, red, or purple velvet, resembled a jagged crayfish’s beard.” Like other articles of clothing during this period, shoes took after Germanic styles and were decorated with slashes called crevés. Nevertheless, the invention of the slashed shoe is credited to the soldiers of Francis I during the wars with Italy who, sustaining injuries from marching or from combat, had to adapt their shoes to fit their bandaged feet. As for protecting delicate shoes from filthy streets, wooden pattens remained popular for outdoor use.
Leonardo da Vinci is said to have invented the heel, but it did not appear until the end of the 16th century, when it began to rise, most likely in response to the flattering effect of greater height produced by the chopine. The first heels were attached to the sole by a piece of leather, as can be seen in the painting from the French School, entitled A Ball at the Valois Court (c.1582) in the Museum of Fine Arts, Rennes.
35. Chopine. Venice, 16th century. International Shoe Museum, Romans.
36. Wooden chopine covered in hide worn by the Venetians. Italy, 16th century. Height: 49 cm. Jacquemart Collection, depot of the National Museum of the Middle Ages, Thermal Baths of Cluny in Paris, International Shoe Museum, Romans.
37. Chopine having been worn. Venice, Italy, around 1600. Weissenfels Museum, with the authorization of Irmgard Sedler.
38. Man’s leather shoe. Around 1530–1540. Weissenfels Museum, with the authorization of Irmgard Sedler.
39. Woman’s shoe. Henri III period, France, 16th century. International Shoe Museum, Romans.
40. King Louis XI Seated on a Throne, Surrounded by the Knights of the Order of Saint Michael. 16th century, F° 9. The Hermitage Museum, Saint-Petersburg.
41. Paolo Caliari, known as Véronèse. The Meal at Simon’s House, detail, around 1570. Château de Versailles.
42. Anthony van Dyck. Portrait of Charles I, around 1635. Oil on canvas. 266 x 207 cm. Louvre Museum, Paris.
43. Frans Pourbus. Henri IV, 1610. Louvre Museum, Paris.
44. Gerritsz van Brekelenkan. A Gentleman Slipping on a Boot, Dutch School, 1655. International Shoe Museum, Romans.
45. Musketeer boot. France, 17th century.
17th century
The 17th century witnessed the export of French style throughout Europe. The fragile eschappins of the Renaissance began to disappear during the reign of Henry IV (1553–1610), replaced by sturdy shoes whose uppers slightly exceeded the sole. The toe of 17th-century shoes, at first rounded, became square under Louis XIII (1601–1643). All shoes of the period revealed side openings. The method of fastening the shoe on top was hidden by a buckle or large bow. But the greatest novelty of the period was the heel, which imparted men and women with a form of bearing that would become the customary posture of European courts in the 17th century.
The new 17th-century shoe had an opening between the heel and the sole, from which it acquired the name soulier à pont-levis (raised bridge shoe). It was also called the soulier à cric (referring to a jack), a French onomatopoeia associated with the sound one made when walking in the shoe, according to Agrippa d’Aubigné’s pamphlet (1552–1630), Le Baron de Fenestre. Around 1640, shoe length exceeded the foot, but the square toe was retained. Early in the 17th century, Henri IV sent a tanner named Roze to Hungary to study their method of leather preparation. His return heralded the rebirth of the Hungarian leather craftsmen and they began producing a soft leather used for boot making that clinged to the calf and the thigh. In boot making, the boot’s over foot, was held by a soulette, which was attached under the foot and held the spur. After 1608, when boots were permitted at court, salons, and balls, the spur was covered with a piece of cloth to prevent damage to ladies’ dresses.
Beginning in 1620, boots called bottes à entonnoir or bottes à chaudron (caldron boots) could be pulled up over the knee for horseback riding, or allowed to fall around the calf for other occasions. The purely utilitarian heel was positioned under the boot to better support the foot in stirrups. Special fabric boot stockings decorated with lace were worn to preserve the silk ones. Boot stockings were worn with entonnoir boots, which had the disadvantage of becoming a receptacle for water when worn in inclement weather. Lazzarines and ladrines were shorter, lighter boots with an ample cuff that were very popular during the reign of Louis XIII. But boots began to disappear from the salons and from court during the reign of Louis XIV (1638–1715), although they were still worn for hunting and in war. Even the heavy boot worn by soldiers until the beginning of the 19th century was gradually replaced in elegant surroundings by a softer version. In 1663, a shoemaker named Nicolas Lestage, established in Bordeaux under the trade name Loup Botté, presented the king with a pair of seamless boots. The shoemaker’s masterpiece earned him great fame and prestige, including a coat of arms that contained a gold boot, a gold crown, and the lily of the house of France, but his trade secret would only be revealed much later: he worked from the skin of a calf’s foot that remained intact. At Versailles, the royal residence since 1678, Louis XIV wore mules tended by the first valet during the ceremonial rising required by rituals of etiquette. The king’s mules became the property of the outgoing chamberlain or the valet at the end of the year. A number of developments in footwear took place during the reign of Louis XIV: lateral openings were eliminated from shoes and wooden heels became the province of a specialized craftsman called le talonnier (heelpiece maker). The Sun King had his own heels trimmed in red leather and his courtiers hastened to imitate him. Red heels remained the mark of aristocratic privileges until the French Revolution, and were only worn by nobles admitted to the court. The height of these heels was noted as a symbol of society’s vanity