One of the most influential larger-than-life men in history…
Was Louis XIV.
A living symbol of wealth, authority and absolute rule – 72 years to be specific.
Yet he had a rather strange quirk…
He wore high heels?
If you Google “Louis XIV portrait”, you’ll find a famous portrait with him in his fleur-de-lis blue & gold blanket…
…and red high-heels.
This is something you’d expect from a vaudeville performer – NOT a French king.
So what gives?
It’s not because he was 5’4” and suffered from Napoleon complex…
(Although there’s probably some of that too…)
No.
It’s because high heels were considered masculine.
In fact…
They were originally designed for MEN.
More precisely: for military men.
Cavalry soldiers needed something that would keep them stable while shooting arrows from horseback – so a raised heel would lock into the stirrup…
…allowing them to stand & aim without slipping.
Yes:
The high heels we all know of were originally designed as nothing more than practical military gear.
But then the women came.
They began developing a fondness for high heels – further incentivized by a broader trend of copycatting masculine fashion.
(e.g. cutting their hair short, adding military-style decorations to their clothes, and even smoking pipes.)
So the men began developing a sort of status panic:
“How could lower-class citizens – as emotional and irrational as women – steal one of the badges of what makes us men?!?”
(If there’s any SJW reading this – I doubt it, but nevertheless – this was during The Enlightenment era, men thunk this way back then. So save that virtue-signalling reply you may have begun drafting.)
And thus… men went back to “normal” footwear.
Why am I telling you all this?
Because the same pattern is observable today:
As tech became better and better – i.e. email platforms added more features like the inclusion of HTML graphics and/or GIFs in them…
Almost everyone started using them.
In the 2000s, perhaps only a few supplement brands were sending out graphics-heavy emails.
But in the 2020s?
You’d need a lantern, a map, and divine intervention to find one that DOESN’T.
So old becomes new & fresh again.
Will not explain further – that’s enough ice cream for the soul.
[Part of this email’s content has been removed from this Email Echoes version of it.]
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