- [Hamish] Greek myths recount that Icarus fashioned wings
as a way to get above and out of a labyrinth.
Mortals have relied on platform shoes instead.
Platforms can be used practically as a form of avoidance
or to be better seen.
Sometimes aesthetics are the driving force.
Often those high soled shoes
are used to communicate social standing.
Hello. I'm your host Hamish Bowles.
And I'm here to tell you everything you need
to know about platform shoes.
Ages before platform shoes became popular in the 1930s,
raised platform soles were being used the world over,
from Venice to Shanghai.
Middle Eastern kabkabs and medieval pattens
were largely functional attire used to keep feet above water
in bath houses and the filth of city streets.
In Japan, getas were worn by workers in muddy fields
and were also part of the costume
and performances of geishas.
Practicality and posturing came together
in the form of chopines and zoccoli
in Italy in the 16th and 17th centuries.
They lifted the wearer from the street,
accommodated longer hems,
made one look infinitely taller,
but they also changed a woman's gait,
sometimes forcing them to rely on others even
to keep upright.
Fast forward to the 1930s where in Europe,
escapism and fashion functioned as a respite
from a war that seemed almost inevitable.
Around 1937, platforms,
which had been worn at fancy beach resorts,
started making the transition onto sidewalks,
dance floors, and hotel lobbies.
In the transition from country to city,
platforms were bejeweled and bedazzled until, Vogue noted,
"They looked more like trinkets than shoes."
"They had the benefit," the magazine wrote earlier,
"of being springy, light, comfortable,
and adding three inches to the length of your legs."
Elsa Schiaparelli, herself petite in stature,
was showing platforms in Paris
around the time that Salvatore Ferragamo,
who worked in Florence, designed a rainbow wedge
for Judy Garland.
Materials were scarce
and the soles of these shoes were made of cork
and then covered in suede.
Platforms delivered glamour on the screen, too,
where many people flocked
to forget their worries for an hour.
On the street, they balanced the broad shoulders
and shorter skirted silhouette
that women adopted as their kind of uniform,
both as a necessity, as fabric was rationed,
and as a show of strength.
Since becoming part of the shoe wardrobe,
platforms have always been in play,
if not always in the spotlight.
They took another star turn
in the liberated and gender fluid 1970s.
Worn by men and women,
they lifted the wearer all the better
to compliment the flared leg silhouette at the time.
Shoemaker Terry de Havilland's now classic Margaux
was launched in 1973,
the same year that the New York Dolls indulged
in some campy platform glamour
on the cover of their autonomous album.
Platforms could accommodate many genres of style,
from Elton John's camp glam eccentricities
to the mock goth of Kiss.
Disco ducks also took to them like water.
Wearing platforms in the 1970s was a way to fit in.
Not so in the following decade.
So-called social x-rays liked their stilettos
as sharp as their figures.
In this era, platforms were taken up by youth subcultures
to dramatically set the wearer apart
from the mainstream.
Inspired by Japanese footwear,
perennial nonconformist Vivienne Westwood designed
her rocking horse shoe
to create movement in the Mini Crinis featured
in her spring 1985 show.
Eight years later,
in the tumble that was broadcast around the world,
Naomi Campbell took a misstep
in Westwood's super elevated Ghillie.
Westwood's use of elevated shoes,
note the curators at the Victoria and Albert Museum,
was part of the designer's quest
to generate a new form of elegance for the modern age.
Traditional markers of elegance fell by the wayside
in the early aughts.
Introduced in 2001,
lucite-heeled pleaser platforms delivered kink.
At the same time,
a new generation was moving in a more casual direction.
Stacked flip flops were a thing,
as were the cartoonish Buffalos worn
by the bubbly Spice Girls.
In the mid 2000s, platforms returned to the runway.
In 2006, Nicolas Ghesquiere, then at Balenciaga,
designed a pair of super high clodhopper boots
that looked vaguely orthopedic.
In October 2009, Lady Gaga launched a new single
at the same time that Alexander McQueen was set
to air his Atlantis collection on SHOWstudio,
and the internet crashed.
When the smoke cleared,
what remained standing was the designer's teetering
and hoof-like armadillo boot.
Animalistic and futuristic at the same time,
it soon became a Gaga trademark.
The late 2010s set up a period
of great creativity and extremes in platform design.
Lady Gaga wore 24-inch platforms to the 2011 CFDA awards.
In comparison, the lacquer red models Phoebe Philo showed
at Celine for 2012 were positively demure.
2016 saw Gucci show rainbow stacked shoes
and Marc Jacobs committing to the buckled Kiki style
in patent leather.
Two years later at Balenciaga,
Demna Gvasalia played the pretty ugly card himself
in the form of platform Crocs
that set the internet atwitter.
The 2020s have so far been a platform-palooza.
At Valentino, Pierpaolo Piccioli further elevated
his couture collection with platforms.
They've also shown up
in Daniel Roseberry's collections for Schiaparelli.
In ready to wear, Versace's Medusa platform
has an energy that collects back to the poppy fun
of Lady Miss Kier in Fluevogs.
Rick Owens's cult Kiss boots come
with a dose of nostalgia, as well.
In an age of individualism,
it makes sense that platforms should come to the fore.
They literally set the wearer apart from the crowd.
[upbeat dance music ends]
[light classical music]
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