High Heels Were First Made for Men — Then Women Made Them Iconic

High heels now appear inseparable from women’s fashion, but the modern heel’s best-documented journey began far from European ballrooms. Persian horsemen used heeled footwear to stabilise their feet in stirrups, turning the raised heel into practical military equipment.

The history requires one important distinction: raised platforms existed in several earlier cultures, including women’s Venetian chopines. The Persian riding heel, however, helped create the separate raised heel that European aristocrats adopted before it became increasingly associated with women.