From this period until the early 19th century, high heels are frequently in vogue for both sexes. An extreme shoe style called chopines, popular among women in Italy, Spain and France, had pedestals of cork or wood as tall as 24 inches. A Venetian lady wearing chopines needed two servants to help her in and out of a gondola. Pilgrims arrive in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The heels of Louis's shoes, some decorated with miniature battle scenes, are as tall as five inches.
Ladies tape their feet to reduce their apparent size and faint at court.
Marie Antoinette ascends the scaffold to be executed wearing two-inch heels. However, in the wake of the French Revolution heels become lower than at any time in the 18th century. Quincy Reed opens America's first retail shoe store in Boston. Early 1800s Flat shoes and Grecian-style sandals become popular. Ladies' heel heights vary but stay below two inches during the rest of the century.