Noble Shoes have been used to demonstrate a person's rank in society since at least the time of the Egyptian pharaohs. Sandals with pointed toes could only be worn by those of higher stations in ancient Egyptian society, with slaves going barefoot and commoners wearing sandals made of woven papyrus. The aristocrats of medieval Europe wore elaborate impractical shoes to demonstrate that the wearer did not perform manual labor.

Royalty and nobility have had a major impact on footwear fashions, in many cases starting fads by wearing shoes to disguise what they perceived to be less than flattering physical qualities. Pointed shoes became fashionable in France as a result of a count who wanted to hide his deformed feet. French king Philip Augustus subsequently decreed a limit to the lengths of shoes according to the wearers? places in society.

Despite the royal decree, footwear grew to increasingly impractical lengths and became a tripping hazard to the wearers. The fourteenth century saw shoes grow so long that chains sometimes linked the toes of the shoes to the knees of the wearer to keep the toes up. Laws were eventually passed in some areas limiting the length of shoe points to about two inches.

King Henry VIII made it fashionable to wear wide-toed shoes. It is believed he did this to conceal his feet that were swollen as a result of gout. Parliament found it necessary to pass a law limiting the width of shoes because fashion took the widths of shoes to extremes.

Louis XIV wore high-heeled shoes to conceal his short stature, a custom that caught on with the men of his court. Although high heels subsequently became fashionable for women, heels became much lower after the French Revolution because of the association of high heels with the excesses of the aristocracy. Mary Tudor (?Bloody Mary?) was another monarch who wore heels as high as possible to conceal the fact that she was ?vertically challenged.?

In 1986, 2700 pairs (Accounts of the numbers of shoes found vary.) of shoes were found in Malacanang palace after Filipino first lady Imelda Marcos fled the Philippines with her husband, Ferdinand. The shoes became a symbol of the extravagance of the first couple among the poverty of the island the strongman ruled for more than twenty years.

Shoe fashion for Western youth of the twenty-first century has origins in basketball and hip-hop subcultures. Shoes worn by popular hip hop artists and basketball stars such as Michael Jordan became popular in the late 1980's. Tragically, the shoes became so popular that children were murdered for their sneakers. Puma recently launched two shoe models based on the old television series ?The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,? which starred rapper and movie star Will Smith.

Thus, even in an age in which most monarchs are only figureheads, royalty ? albeit of a different sort ? still plays a role iootwear fashion.