Love your high heels.

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A glance at the shoes in my wardrobe tells the story of my feet. Hardly a heel in there these days, just a few special wedges to add an inch to my height. I have never worn really high heels, but high enough to make my legs look a little longer and perhaps even a little more shapely. Now I am in sensible shoes but not altogether from choice. What is it about high heels that we love and when did women first start wearing them I wondered. It didn't take too much research to find the unhappy answer to my questions. Men were the ones to first wear high heels. According to one source they were a practical way for Persian horsemen to keep their feet in the stirrups. No glamour about them in those days. Then the aristocracy (men again) decided that wearing shoes that were impractical to walk in was a mark of their rank. When women got into the act the significance of the high heel diminished in the eyes of the men and it dropped from fashion. There it remained until the 19th century when models in pornographic magazines were shown to be wearing high heeled shoes and nothing else. It seems a sad state of affairs that it took such a route before we ladies discovered the joy of walking tall and the elegance of wearing high heels. How much do you love yours, or have you reached the same stage as I have when they have become simply a nostalgic memory of more youthful times?