Now to Shoes --- Day 4/63

Walk: Corte Madera, Fillmore
Distance: 8 blocks and home yoga

 Ciwt isn't much of a shoe person, so she was surprised one of her favorites in the visiting Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection was the shoe room.  The clog above is Venetian, made of silk and bead-covered cork. Called Chopines they were an upper class fashion in Venice from 1550 - 1650.  Originally fashion historians thought the height of the clog was a practical way to lift wearers' garments above the watery streets. But now they think that chopines actually were worn as conspicuous displays of wealth and status -with some reaching the height of twenty inches.

Eventually the style became associated with prostitutes at which point the upper classes began wearing high heels, known at the time as latchets.More on high heels tomorrow.