It is not quite the bonfire of the vanities, but the backing by TUC delegates for the motion “High heels may look glamorous on the Hollywood catwalks but are completely inappropriate for the day-to-day working environment” suggests the fight for equality is levelling down rather than up. What might have been a feminist issue is reduced to a question of health and safety. Yet, high heels have long been one of the most political statements fashion can make.

The practical and ethical questions raised by high heels were thoroughly examined by the Venetian Republic. In 1430 the Major Council in Venice passed a law threatening fines and three months’ imprisonment for any shoemaker selling ladies’ platforms of more than three inches. Claiming it made women look “deformed”, the men on the council worried that pregnant women might fall over, losing their child and injuring “both their bodies and their souls”. The law was also designed “to alleviate the expense about which everybody knows”, although this did not stop La Serenissima continuing to spend lavishly on every other kind of frippery.

The law was quickly flouted. In 1494, Canon Pietro Casola saw Venetian women clumping around in 11-inch platforms. The effect, he said, was to make them look like giants. Unfortunately, they had to lean on slaves for support. Thereafter, misogynists began to see the advantages of impractical footwear. In 1655 an elderly Venetian senator argued that there should be legislation to increase the height of women’s platforms because wives and daughters in sensible shoes “would go to all the parties and scorn their houses and such bad government would ruin the family”. Clearly the old fool had not reckoned with gondolas and sedan chairs into his calculations. Wearing high heels proved you were rich enough to have someone convey you to your destination. Practical shoes were for the downtrodden who had to walk. Heels lifted you, literally, above the dirt.

The spiritual defence of high heels was made by the Venetian nun Angela Tarabotti, who in 1660 pointed out that, “You never find wonderful and great things on the ground, but instead on high, to fill others with wonder and reverence.”

Quite so. And to borrow from the King James Bible, we always knew trade unions wanted to put down the mighty from their seats. But what of exalting those of low degree?

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