Boots

Although The Costume Institute collection comprises fashionable examples of dress and accessories from the last three centuries, an exception was made for these fetish boots, with their extremely high and tapered heels. The boots anticipate by at least a decade the stiletto heels of postwar fashion and illustrate the incorporation of designs originating from a world of highly specialized and esoteric tastes into the larger, ostensibly more normative, culture. The tendency of fashion to co-opt taboo and exotic elements from other periods, cultures, or, as in this instance, the demimonde, is one strategy employed for its constant reinvigoration.