THAT'S SO 1608

You all know how fashion design gets crazier and more intelligent and complicated as Father Time whittles his walking stick. And it would seem as if the same goes for shoes, especially if you look at any of the shows for Fashion Week anywhere lately. But actually, that's not quite true. Shoes aren't anywhere near as innovative as you might think.

Look at these. I bet you're going "Hey wow, there's no heel on this shoe! Only like a strange platform in the front! How is it possible to walk on this?!" Well, boys and girls, get this: people came up with that idea about 400 years ago. Let me introduce you to the Chopine:

Mostly Italian women and Venetian courtesans wore these around 1600. These particular ones were made with velvet, metal studs, and silver braids. Sounds quite contemporary, right? They were originally only used to make the women look taller, and make prostitutes stand out of the crowd, so they could be spotted easily and therefore discriminated against more easily. The Vatican was very pleased with this style because it meant that women couldn't really move and therefore commit sins such as dancing. But in the end they outlawed them (the shoes, not the prostitutes) in Venice, because a lot of women obviously fell over and lost the children growing big and strong in their bellies. And also because often men were highly dissappointed seeing that their newly wedded wife was actually 15 inches smaller than he'd always seen her. Here's some other modern interpretations for Nina Ricci:

Sure seems rough on the models--they're the only ones who'll ever wear these, and they get paid for it. But what are models bitching about, having to walk on 10-inch high heels, like these McQueen ones:

They're lucky they don't have to walk on 20-inch tall platforms in times where they didn't have nicely paved streets and nice smooth tiles in houses. Or runways, for that matter.

And remember the Romans? They had laces! According to these officer boots called Campagnus, the higher up the laces, the higher in rank the wearer was.

Well I guess we can apply this to our fellow 21st century inhabitants in their battle for the most power in the fashion army parade called Fashion Week. The shoes are not very high, but there's a lot of laces on show:

Multiple rows! Smart!

I'm not sure if the heel counts, but they sure are high up!

But i guess these are the absolute winners:

These traditional Japanese Getas were used to keep the inside shoes and socks clean when walking outside.

Guess where Acne got their inspiration?

And the same goes for these European versions of the Geta.

Does this look familiar?

That's right. So kids, just pay attention in history class, you never know which direction your career will go.

some photos from JAK & JIL and StyleBubble