BA1 CLASS READING - INTRODUCTION TO FASHION THEORY - GENDER AND SEXUALITY (STILETTOS) GROUP SEMINAR PRESENTATION (THE SEXY ONE) - this reading is extracts (...) from the set text.

FASHION THEORY - GENDER AND SEXUALITY

Sexuality

The cultural connotations relating to matters pertaining to sex and gender, involving biological, psychological, and sociological dimensions. Developed in the early nineteenth century to denote the quality of being sexual, sexuality refers both to normative heterosexual behaviour and to other sexual leanings and so-called perversions. The term has attracted controversy concerning whether sexuality is natural or socially constructed in different cultural and historical contexts. (Craik, 2009, p.335).

Feminist approaches privilege the specific gendered implications of the manipulation of fashion systems to construct desired images of femininity ...

Psychoanalytic approaches explain fashion behaviour in terms of unconscious sexual desires and erotic tendencies related to the formation of the ego and the id ...

Masculinity and queer studies explore the particularities of men's relationship with fashion and the construction of masculinity and other sexualised identities ... (Craik, 2009, p.117).

SEXUALITY AND STILETTOS

There is no item of clothing in the modern fashion systems for men or women imbued with more sexuality than the stiletto high heeled shoe ... Women in stilettos are commonly portrayed as sexual predators and as a threat to the social order, but at the same time, women are encouraged to wear stilettos as a symbol of their essential femininity and fashionability. Despite these connotations, stilettos have been condemned as a health problem and medical issue responsible for fractured bones, deformation of the feet, and sprained ankles, and the source of back and muscular problems. Yet the image of stiletto heels remains one of glamour and the ultimate in femininity ...

Up until the late eighteenth century, men also wore heels. The most famous example of a man wearing heels was Louis XIV, who introduced shoes with red heels in 1673, ostensibly to confirm the elevation of his court. They were complemented by a red ribbon lacing the top of the shoe. These were immediately copied by the courtiers. Only the nobility were permitted to wear them, but only if they could demonstrate that they did not dirty the shoes! ...

The history of the stiletto heel dates from the 1950s with the production of high heels that could be attached to a shoe ... The term 'stiletto' seems to have come from its similarity to the thin and tapered stiletto knife, over time becoming the name for the ultra-high-heeled shoes. The shoe was the result of experimentation with the construction of high tapering heels, which required the insertion of a metal core in the wood to provide the necessary strength to carry the body. After research into the ergonomics of the stiletto heel in 1956, a model that incorporated a plastic heel with a metal core was patented as the solution.

By the late 1950s the stiletto show had become a symbol of young female identity, epitomising the glamour associated with youth culture and emerging sexuality. The controversy associated with stilettos served only to enhance their appeal.

For prepubescent girls, a modified high-heeled shoe with a none-inch heel called the kitten became the transitional shoe from childhood flats and asexuality to adult heels and femininity. Once a girl graduated to stilettos, overt sexuality was seen to follow. In films, fashion photography, and advertisements showing  women removing stilettos symbolised an implied or imminent sexual encounter.

Although the stiletto became an essential piece of footwear, its popularity waxed and waned with the vagaries of fashion. The 1950s generation of stiletto wearers often experienced significant deformation of their toes and balls of  the feet. Some women couldn't even put their heels on the ground when bare footed. Medical journals carried articles warning of the dangers of stilettos (in a repeat of the corset controversy of the late nineteenth century). This may have deterred (some of) their daughters from adopting the stiletto habit, for the heels of the late 1960s and 1970s tended to be lower and thicker ...

During the 1980s, there were opposing trends regarding stilettos, with career women opting for a modified version of men's suits with sensible conservative footwear, while aggressive female entrepreneurs preferred to flaunt their ambitions with extremely high stilettos. In fashion photography, stilettos continue to be part of the lexicon of sexual libertarianism and transgression and to evoke the figure of the dominatrix ... perhaps the most famous photograph of ultra high-heels is that of Naomi Campbell's fall in Vivienne Westwood's blue 'mock croc' ten-inch platform shoes during the parade of her Anglomania collection of 1993-94.

Of course, different colours convey different qualities - black for power, red for sexuality, and animal-patterned or skin stilettos for lust. The multiple signifiers of stilettos were referenced by artist Allen Jones in his 1972 table sculpture of a female mannequin on all fours dressed in a black latex hooded body suit, black stockings, and knee-length black leather stiletto boots underneath a glass top. The emergence of the fast-growing luxury and erotic lingerie sector accompanied this trend, which sparked controversy about soft-porn connotations, especially once lingerie became popularised as outerwear. This combination of stilettos and suggestive lingerie became the basis of the stage costumes of female performers such as Madonna, Kylie Minogue, the Spice Girls, Grace Jones, and Blondie. 

The new female power called girl power was epitomised by Madonna because she 'dressed like a sex object, but ... suggested that the trappings of femininity could be used to make a sexual statement that was powerful rather than passive' (Stoller quoted by Semmelhack 2006: 242, 245). In this take on the stiletto women could achieve equality and power through the conspicuous consumption of erotic symbols. (Craik and Peoples in Craik, 2009, pp.127-9).

KEY TERMS

ergonomics
libertarianism
signifiers

KEY POINTS FOR DISCUSSION

1. The double identity of women in stilettos i.e. sexual predator but also a symbol of femininity...

2. The medical problems caused by stilettos and how that compares to 19th C concerns about corsets ...

3. The symbolism of stilettos in film, fashion photography and advertisements...

4. Stilettos' association with soft porn (Allen Jones)...

5. Girl Power (Madonna)... 

REFERENCE

Craik, J. (2009) Fashion - the key concepts. Oxford: Berg.