User:Widecalfboots

Pre-1960s
In the 19th and early 20th Centuries, ankle and calf-length boots were common footwear for women. Rising hemlines made longer styles of boots popular. In 1913, Denise Poiret, the wife of celebrated French couturier Paul Poiret, caused a sensation in Paris and New York by wearing knee-length boots in wrinkled Morocco leather. Designed by her husband, made by the bottier Favereau, and styled with a low heel and a square toe, she had versions in red, white, green, and yellow. By 1915 the New York Times was reporting that, inspired by Mme Poiret, women had adopted these "Russian boots" as an acceptable alternative to baring ankles and calves. By the 1920s Russian boots were available in a variety of styles, calf- or knee-length, with a Cuban or Louis heel, which could be pull-on, or zip-fastened for a closer fit. Worn with knee-length skirts, they often featured decorative features such as elaborate stitching or fur trims. Russian boots were sporadically popular during the 1920s, as a more fashionable alternative to galoshes, but fell out of favor by the 1930s.

One reason for the decline in popularity of boots during the first half of the 20th century may be because streets became cleaner as roads were surfaced and horse-drawn transport gave way to the motor engine. The additional protection provided by boots was no longer needed. Boots were seen as restrictive and uncomfortable when compared with the new styles of fashionable shoe that compimented a more streamlined and simplified look for women's clothing.

1960s
American designer Beth Levine is widely credited as the first person to introduce boots into Haute Couture. As early as 1953, Beth Levine introduced under the Herbert Levine label a calf-length boot in white kidskin, which sold poorly. Most retailers saw boots as a separate category of footwear from shoes, to be worn for protection from bad weather or for work. By contrast, Levine argued that boots were shoes and could be an integral part of a woman's outfit. In 1957, Herbert Levine produced an entire collection of based around fashion boots, and despite widspread skepticism on the part of other designers and manufactuers, calf-high, kitten-heeled fashion boots for women began to grow in popularity in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By 1963 Yves Saint Laurent's couture collection included thigh-length alligator skin boots by designer Roger Vivier and Vogue was able to announce that boots of all lengths were the look of the moment. The re-emergence of boots as a fashion item in the 1960s has been interpreted as an antidote to the femininity of Dior's post war "New Look".

Rising hemlines and the availability of new, brightly colored artificial materials such as PVC, combined to make boots an attractive fashion option for younger women. In 1965 André Courrèges released the first of his iconic white leather calf-length boots and designers such as Mary Quant, who launched her own 'Quant Afoot' line of footwear in 1967, produced inexpensive, machine-molded plastic boots in a variety of different colors to be worn in tandem with mini-skirts. The rising price of leather during the 1960s made these plastic and vinyl boots a popular alternative to more traditional footwear. As skirts became even shorter in the late 1960s, there was a resurgence of interest in thigh-length boots or cuissardes. Pierre Cardin featured shiny black PVC thighboots as part of his futuristic 1968 couture collection and Beth Levine designed seamless, stretch vinyl and nylon stocking boots tall enough to do double duty as hosiery. The tallest boots from this period were so high that they were equipped with suspenders to hold them up. High laced boots, similar to those worn in Edwardian times, were also popular.

1970s and 1980s
Although fashion boots and particularly 'go-go boots' are often described as 'typical' of 1960s fashion, it wasn't until the 1970s that boots became a mainstream fashion staple for women; for many women in the 1960s, boots were seen as 'a superfluous accessory' more suitable for teenagers and college girls than a grown woman. By contrast, the end of the following decade saw fashion boots occupying multiple pages of mainstream mail-order catalogs by companies such as Sears, Wards, and Kays.

The early 70s were typified by tight-fitting, vinyl boots rising to the knee or higher. These sometimes had mock lacing on the front and zipped up at the rear; they could be worn under the new maxi dresses, which had slits in them to show the leg. In summer, pale, high-legged boots in printed or open weave fabric were teamed with summery dresses; these often had extensive cut-outs, so that they were more like high-legged sandals than conventional boots. Platform-soled styles were also popular. The multi-colored suede and canvas over-the-knee boots produced by the London store Biba were so sought-after that queues would form outside the store when a delivery was due. By the late 1970s, form-fitting, shaped-leg boots were being replaced with straight-legged designs, frequently worn over jeans or other pants, which were often pulled-on rather than zip-fastened. As well as high-heeled dress boots, more rugged designs, by companies such as Frye, were widely worn. The end of the decade saw a growth in popularity of shorter, calf-length boots, often worn layered with socks and tights, and a revival of interest in over-the-knee and thigh-length boots, which were popularized by punk and new wave performers such as Blondie’s Debbie Harry.

In contrast to the preceding decade, the 1980s saw a sharp decline in the popularity of high-legged boots. Instead, ankle boots in a variety of styles were particularly popular, as were low-heeled, calf-length, pull-on styles. Knee length boots, if worn at all, tended to be low-heeled, faux riding boots that were combined with long skirts. It wasn't until the end of the decade that the inherent elegance of classic dress boot styles was rediscovered.

1990s and 2000s
The early 1990s saw an explosion in dance club culture and its associated fashions, many of which looked back to the 1960s for inspiration, as well as drawing on fetish-themed elements. Knee-length go-go boots, platform-soled boots, and even thigh-length PVC boots were worn by clubbers, but although some designers flirted with these styles of footwear (e.g. Gianni Versace) mainstream take-up was limited. Nonetheless, by 1993 boots were popular enough for the U.S. edition of Vogue to declare that it was “The Year of the Boot”. Knee-length boots became commonplace again, initially as lace-up styles which were subsequently replaced by zip-fastened boots in the second half of the decade.

By the turn of the 21st Century, fashion boots in a variety of styles were back to the same level of ubiquity that they had enjoyed in the 1970s. A pair of knee-length boots, often with metal accents, was widely regarded as a must-have wardrobe item for the clothes-conscious woman, paired with knee length skirts and dresses for business and casual wear. Ankle boots also remained very popular and in the latter part of the first decade knee-length styles worn over pants, especially jeans, were common. In 2009 thigh-length boots were a subject of major attention by the fashion press,   receiving guarded approval and a level of mainstream acceptance that they had never previously achieved; this trend continued in 2010. In 2011, ankle boots were being promoted as a popular summer alternative to sandals.