Overview
A chopine is a mule-like overshoe mounted on a tall platform sole, sometimes reaching extraordinary heights, covered in leather, velvet, or brocade. It lifted the fine gown and the wearer clear of Venice’s wet and dirty streets while advertising wealth and status.
How it is worn
It is stepped into over a soft shoe and worn under long skirts that hid all but the toe, so a tall chopine also added dramatic height; the higher the platform, the greater the wearer’s rank was understood to be. Walking in the tallest examples required attendants for support.
History
Chopines were most extreme in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Venice, where sumptuary laws tried in vain to limit their height, and spread to Spain and beyond. Ridiculed by moralists and made impractical by their own excess, they eventually gave way to the heeled shoe.