The
Natural History of the Platform Shoe
by
E.UVA
Although in our youth we celebrate what
we like, we also spend a fair amount of energy bashing what we find
distasteful. We go through a natural selection of ideas, as we weed out the
things that do not merit additional ATP and neural pathways. Then as we mature,
we cultivate our passions and devote energies accordingly. Of course, one man’s
poison is another woman’s meat. With sense grows sensibility, and we don’t wish
to offend anyone by knocking the themes and habits that reign supreme in some
other soul.
Nevertheless,
I occasionally take a perverse pleasure in being critical of the flora that
neighbouring minds nurture. Since it’s unlikely that any of them will be
reading this piece, their feelings will be spared.
An
infectious idea is that if “everyone” is wearing some shoe-type, then it must
be worth purchasing. Currently that shoe-type is the platform shoe. It
came into being when the handyman of a fashion trendsetter left a couple of
sawed-off, glue-covered two-by-fours lying around. Upon seeing them stuck to
her soles, the trendsetter experienced a tour de force, the kind that elated
Mendeleev when he realized that there was a connection between atomic masses
and chemical properties. The rest became shoe history. Soon stores were filled
with platform running shoes, platform sandals, and platform panty hose.
With
the right timing, mediocre ideas can become fantastically popular and
profitable. This is because we are biologically designed to copycat; the
survival of our species depends on imitation. And fashion extremes aside, most
of what we mimic is worth doing. Losing touch with cultural history would be
fatal. No isolated group of people, regardless of creative potential, could
reinvent the past over the course of even several generations. Nor would they
get too far establishing a totally new future.
Unfortunately,
the mechanism that saves societies is also why women are stuck wearing silly,
uncomfortable shoes. Besides, if one woman refuses to ride the wave of platform
fashion, she resigns herself to being shorter than everyone else.