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Originally Posted by Lucy  Hi Puffer!
Yes, broadly I would agree with what you've said, especially your point that many of us wore heels over 3" (contrary to Skirted's posting).
I would only venture to say that the first UK stiletto "craze" started earlier than you said, and hit us girls and our mothers in a big way in 1955. I think it had already started sweeping through Italy (and maybe the US) by 1954 or earlier, but 1955 the "Big Bang" reached the UK and by 1956 they were everywhere - on the streets, in my school (worn by the teachers and some of us more daring pupils), on cinema films etc. Remembering that there was only one fashion in those days - skirts, nylon stockings and high heels, every girl everywhere started wearing them. They came along the pavements in droves!
Love, Lucy |
I think fashions caught on a lot quicker in London than they did in the shires in the fifties. I lived in a very conservative town and the straight skirt did not become popular down here until after 1956 and I don't remember any of the girls that I knew wearing 4" heels with it. Most parents did not want their teenage daughters wearing tight skirts and sky-high heels in those days.
Most of the girls that I knew wore 2.5" stiletto heeled sling-backs, some wore 3" heel court shoes. The first pair of 4" heel court shoes that I can remember were worn by a very short girl in our office who had small feet, that must have been about 1965. With the advent of the mini skirt in sixties, 4" heels went out of fashion together with straight skirts, it was all short skirts and flat shoes, or boots worn with them. I don't remember 4" stilettos coming back until the early eighties and straight skirts did not come back until the late eighties. 4" stilettos and straight skirts regularly come back into fashion as a new generation of women try them, but after a short while they soon tire of them and opt for more practical clothes.