The History of High Heels
You're Dead to Me
BBC
4.7 • 11.8K Ratings
🗓️ 17 September 2021
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
High heels have been around since as early as the 10th century. Today we see them as a cornerstone of footwear fashion, with models strutting their stuff on the catwalk in heels of varying colours and styles. But how has this impractical, even masochistic piece of design become so gender-specific and has it always been this way? Greg Jenner discusses the history of high-heeled shoes with Dr Elizabeth Semmelhack from the Bata Shoe Museum and with returning comedian Lauren Pattison.
See photos of the shoes discussed: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09w4wgl/
Produced by Cornelius Mendez Script by Emma Nagouse, Harry Prance and Greg Jenner Research by Harry Prance
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello Greg here, just to say we are showing our comedian Lauren Patterson some lovely photos of |
| 0:04.8 | shoes from history, from various museum collections. Her descriptions are great of course, |
| 0:09.5 | but if you want to see them for yourself, go to the BBC Your Dead To Me website and look for the |
| 0:14.1 | history of High Heels page. BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. Hello and welcome to Your Dead To Me, |
| 0:23.1 | a BBC Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history, seriously. My name is Greg Jenner, |
| 0:27.7 | I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster and I'm the chief nerd on the funny kid show, |
| 0:32.2 | Horrible Histories. Today we are strapping on our stilettos and strutting our stuff as we explore |
| 0:37.6 | the history of the High Heels shoe. Yes, it's a fashion episode and to do that I'm joined by two |
| 0:43.0 | very special guests. In History Corner, she's director and senior curator of the Bata shoe museum |
| 0:48.0 | in Toronto and museum dedicated to researching the history and cultural significance of footwear. |
| 0:53.1 | She's an expert in the intersections of fashion, economics and gender and has written loads of |
| 0:57.1 | books and articles including Height's a fashion, a history of the elevated shoe, it's Dr Elizabeth |
| 1:02.0 | Semmelhack. Hello Elizabeth, so thrilled to have you here. I'm thrilled to be here too, thanks. |
| 1:06.7 | And in Comedy Corner, she's an award-winning comedian. She was best newcomer nominee at the |
| 1:10.7 | Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017. You may have seen her hilarious stand-up shows or quarter on |
| 1:15.4 | the telly on stand-up for live comedy, roast battle and drunk history. You may have heard her on the |
| 1:20.3 | podcast conversations against living miserably, but most importantly you'll have heard her on this |
| 1:24.6 | podcast with the Mary Shelley episode. It's the marvelous Lauren Patterson. Welcome back Lauren. |
| 1:30.0 | Hello, hello, nice to see you again. Lauren, last time out you told us that |
| 1:35.2 | History for you at school was basically the war. So I don't know where you stand on the history |
| 1:41.4 | of shoes. Did you do shoe history at school? I'm guessing not. I can't see it ever came off, no. |
| 1:48.4 | Disafointing, the curriculum has let us all down. And where do you stand? Or rather, how do you stand |
... |
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