Platform shoes are shoes, boots or sandals with thick soles usually around three inches in height or more, often made of cork,
plastic, rubber, or wood (wooden-soled platform shoes are technically
also clogs). They have been worn in various cultures since ancient times for fashion or for added height.
Platform shoes took off in a very big way amongst most age groups
and classes of UK men and women in the 1970s. Whilst wedge heels were
popular on platforms in the summer, high thick separate heeled platform
boots and shoes were 'all the rage'. Many of the shoe styles were
recycled 1940s and early 1950s styles, but both shoes and boots were
often in garish combinations of bright colours. The Spice Girls, as
with many UK young women and even men of the time, would have seen
their mothers' and fathers' '70s shoes at the back of the wardrobe and
would have played in them as little girls and boys. (This kind of
childhood experiences may explain why fashion seems to repeat on a
twenty year cycle).
The trend firmly re-established itself in the Developed World
fashions of the late 1990s and very early 21st century with a much
higher threshold of what was considered outrageous: mothers and fathers
of 1997 to 2004 typically think nothing of buying their preschool-age
daughters and sons platform sandals that US parents of 1973 would not
have wanted their high-school-age daughters and sons wearing and UK
parents of 1973 would not have wanted their prepubescent daughters and
sons wearing.
