A Fashionable Louis XV Heel

Custom-made shoes with Louis XV-style heels, belonging to Rita de Acosta Lydig (1880-1929), wealthy New York socialite. She commissioned several hundred pairs of this style heels from Pierre Yantorny, a talented shoemaker with an exclusive clientele.

—Photo source, Twitter

Why is it that we always associate the French woman with all that is frivolous in dress, as well as in most other things, while we know that in many ways, the French are the most thrifty and practical of nations? An authoritative statement is made now that high heels are having an unusual running Paris, something unprecedented, for it is said, that the French woman owes her good carriage to the fact that she almost universally wears a low, broad heel, and the French boot maker invariably refers to the small pedestal in the middle of the foot upon which some unfortunates limp, as the “English heel.” It is possible that what we have always known as the “Louis XV,” or “French heel,” is a relic of past days in France, and has since been known only outside of that country? — New York Times, 1902

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia