The women’s wedge heel shoe made its debut in the fashion world in 1938. It was originally designed and created by Italian shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo, who became known for his visionary and classic designs in women’s shoes. Farragamo gained his reputation as a designer of shoes and boots in the film industry in the 1920s. As a result of his innovative designs and the quality of his shoes, he was commissioned by both male and female movie stars to make shoes for both screen performances. as for personal use. Due to the popularity of his shoes in Hollywood, he became known as “Shoemaker to the Stars”.
Although her shoes were popular with the Hollywood elite, they were not comfortable. To solve this problem, she enrolled at the University of Los Angeles to study anatomy, mathematics, and chemical engineering. He applied his studies to the design of his shoes and broke away from the way shoes were traditionally made and designed, and began to make his own shoes, both innovative in design and comfortable to wear. The popularity of his shoes expanded internationally, but the overwhelming demand for his shoes and the inability to meet that demand without the help of qualified personnel forced him to return to Italy. Finding qualified personnel in Florence, one of the centers of the Italian shoe industry, he opened his own store and began to expand the production of his shoes.
In the late 1930s, due to the war, a shortage of leather and rubber, traditional materials used in shoemaking, developed. Ferragamo began experimenting with non-traditional materials such as straw, felt, cork and wood and incorporated them into the design of his shoe brand. As a result of his experimentation with these non-traditional materials, he created his most prominent designs, the wedge and cage heel shoe. He produced the wedge heel with wood or cork as a support for the shoe platform. The cork platform became the most popular due to its lightness and durability. Women of her time considered the wedge heel to be much easier to walk in than shoes with a narrower heel and bought this type of shoe, not only for its style, but also for the support of the foot and the comfort it provided. To walk. Two years after its introduction to the world of fashion, the wedge heel has become a classic and popular design in women’s shoes internationally.
Its original wedge heel design made no distinction between the heel and the rest of the shoe, except that the back and instep of the foot rose above the toe of the shoe. It featured a triangular platform on which food rested that extended from the heel of the foot to the middle or forefoot. Today, the original design of both your platform and regular wedge heel shoe has evolved into a more defined heel in some styles, cut-out platforms, straps, and strapless shoes, with assorted embellishment. The wedge heel today offers more variety in colors and materials and is built with heels ranging from one inch to over 4 inches in height. Shoe sizes now range from small to extra large and women of different heights and walks of life wear this classic style of platform shoe for both style and comfort.
The platform shoe had been worn in many cultures, prior to the 20th century, but Farragamo’s innovative wedge heel design reintroduced the platform shoe to the world of fashion. His visionary ideas ranged from the bizarre to the subtle designs worn by women every day and served as an inspiration for other footwear designers of his time. Today, his company is still known for its classic and visionary designs in women’s shoes.
The wedge heel shoe has become a classic and fashionable shoe style for women of all ages and remains as popular as it was in the 1930s. Whether Ferragamo’s intentions were that his design of the Whether or not it spread to different genres of footwear fashion, the wedge heel shoe has become a versatile shoe that can be worn with almost any style of clothing. Wedge heels today are sold as formal, dress and casual shoes. It is a shoe that has shown its continuous defiance of fashion trends and has stood the test of time.