History of Footwears Spanish cave drawing from more than 15000 years age shows humans with animal

skins or furs wrapped around their feet. The body of a well preserved ice-man nearly 5000 years old wears leather foot coverings stuffing with straw. Shoes in some form or another have been around for a very long time. The evolution of foot coverings from the sandal to present day athletes shoes are marvels of engineering and continues even today as we find new materials with which to cover our feet. Has the shoes really changed that much though? We are in fact wearing sandals the oldest crafted foot covering known to us. Many of the shoes we wear today can be traced back to another era. The Cuban heels may have been named for the dance craze of the 1920s, but the shape can be seen long before that time. Platform soles, which are one of the most recognizable features of footwear in 1970s and 1990s,were handed down to us from the 16 th century Chopin. Then, high sole were a necessity to keep the feet off the dirty streets. Today, they are worn strictly for fashions sake. The pup lane with its ridiculously long toes is not different from the wrinkle pickers worn in 1960s. If one can deduce, the basic shoe shapes have evolved only so much, it is necessary to discover why this has happened. It is surely not due to a lack of imagination- the color and materials of shoes today demonstrate that, looking at shoes from different parts of the world, one can see undeniable similarities. While the Venetians were wearing the Chopin, the Japanese balanced on high soled wooden shoes called get. Though the shape is slightly different, the idea remains the same. The Venetians had no contact with the Japanese, so it is not a case of imitation. Even the mystical Chinese practical of foot binding has copied in our culture.

Some European women and men of the past bound their feet with tape and squashed them into too-tight shoes. In fact, a survey from the early 1990s reported that 88 % of women wear shoes that are too small. As one examines footwear history, both in the west and in other parts of the world, the similarities are apparent. Though the shoemaker of the past never would have thought to pair a sandal with platform sole, our shoe fashions of today are for the most part, modernized adaptations of past styles.