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Chopin is an extravagant shoe from the 17th century

April 29, 2023

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While today's world is characterised by extravagant shoes, in the past shoemakers produced shoes of all kinds and shapes, no less creative than in the 2000s. Among them, one cannot fail to mention chopins, a very popular type of women's shoe between the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Although today the "wedges" of some chopins may resemble the twentieth-century wedges of the same name, in ancient shoes the purpose was primarily functional and then aesthetic.

The history of shoes stems from the need for women not to soil their clothes with the dirt that was often found on the street. Shoes became famous in Venice, then one of the centres of world trade and luxury. Chopins served to define the social class of the wearer: the higher the wedge, the higher the social status of the wearer.

To regulate people's height, a law was issued in 1430 limiting the height of the heel to about 8 centimetres. But the norms were almost completely ignored and chopins up to 50 centimetres high were produced, which are kept today in the Palazzo Mocenigo Museum and the Museo Correra in Venice. The relics available there are made of wood and cork, while the Spanish ones are made of metal. The wedge was covered with leather, brocade and velvet, and the fabric of the chopin often matched the fabric of the dress, although this was not a fixed rule. They were lavishly ornamented, though, and were therefore evidence of the wearer's noble origins. For display, the shoes were often hidden under the wearer's skirt, away from any possible criticism from the people.

Women who walked with chopins had a distinctly unsteady gait, as if on stilts, and noblemen were often accompanied by two servants who served as supports. Although some people found it difficult to move, others managed to juggle naturally, so much so that dance teacher Marco Fabrizio Caroso states in his 1600 The Noble Lady: a woman must dance with grace and beauty on his chopins.

However, speaking of noblemen and ladies, a curious peculiarity of chopinas can be noted: they were worn by nobles, as well as by ordinary women and prostitutes, without distinction of class. If the fashion spread widely in Venice, the greatest popularity chopinas reached in Spain. The shoe became so popular that in the 15th century most of the domestic production of cork was destined for the production of wedge shoes.

This fact has led fashion historians to assume that the origin of the shoe must be located in Spain and not in Italy, also because of the discovery of Spanish specimens dating back to the fourteenth century. The shoe spread not only to Italy and Spain, but also to France and England, and eventually even made its way to China.

Although the word "Chopine" does not exist in Italian, it was called "Pianella", which has taken on the opposite meaning in modern Italian, denoting a low and open ankle shoe.

In Venice, every woman wore chopins and looked like a kind of "sculpture on pedestals". Movement, especially with higher wedges, was naturally very restricted and so men were encouraged to use higher wedges. In this way, women would not venture out of the house while Venetian merchants were out of town on business.

Even the clergy, who were unaccustomed to extravagant fashions, favoured the spread of the chopin. In fact, it severely restricted dancing, an activity considered "sinful" by the religious leaders of the time.