Shoesday- high (heel) profile

Throughout the history of the world countless people have lived and died who left not a scrap for their later recognition. There have also been thousands who made their mark and preserved their identity for centuries to come through great careers in science, politics, philosophy, art and war craft. Now and then, one comes along who try as they might, will not be remembered for their career ambitions and achievements and Catherine de’ Medici was one such woman.

Catherine was born in Florence in 1519 to an Italian Duke and French princess, both dying and leaving Catherine to grow up in a convent. At 15 she married Henry, Duke of Orleans and moved to France where she would later become Queen, regent and Queen Mother of France. While her career was colourful and stained with the blood of many of her contemporaries, it was her refined taste that would change the world forever.

Among her credits is the refinement of French cooking with her Florentine chefs working their magic on the already developing local cuisine. Dessert was one of her gifts to medieval Europe and to the western-world menus descended from there. If not for Catherine, we would not know the pleasure of sweet separated from savoury!

Also inspired by her many soirees, she combined the talents of local French performers and artists from her home land and commissioned the invention of ballet to entertain her many guests.

Catherine was reportedly somewhat plain and she found it difficult dealing with the humiliation of her husband openly keeping a mistress. Appearance became a mild obsession with her and the effects are still with us today.

Catherine banned thick waists at court, popularizing corsets and the distorted body shapes they created. Corsets remained vital to ladies fashion for the next 350 years and dangerously thin waists have been totally ‘in’ ever since.

We have Catherine to thank for the corner stone of modern everyday style- lip gloss! Catherine just blended a little beeswax with food colouring to produce a reddish coloured lip salve that could keep her moisturized and looking good for hours.

Most importantly though, Catherine was lacking in the height department and in 1532, when facing the splendid French court for the first time she got her favourite Florentine cobbler to remove the clunky wooden soles from her shoes and replace it with slender padded four-inch heels. Voila! 1533 here we come… hot.

And where would we be without slinky high heels today? (That was rhetorical. I shall not be held responsible for any fainting fits or bouts of severe depression that are brought on by readers trying to imagine a world without oh-so-vital high heels.)