Chopine

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the volume of the same name, see Chopine (unit)

Chopine made of green silk, c. 1550–1600 ( Metropolitan Museum of Art )

Albrecht Dürer : A woman from Nuremberg and a woman from Venice . The Venetian looks much taller because of her high pedestal shoes

The Chopine (French: la chopine [ la ʃɔ.pin ], from Spanish : el chapín (plural: los chapines ), from Arabic : chippin = cork oak ; Italian : zoccoli , cioppino , chioppino etc .; English : chopinos , chapiney , choppins ) is a historical women's shoe with a high platform sole, which was fashionable in Spain and Italy for almost 200 years from the 15th to 17th centuries. It is basically a later form of already in antiquity known buskins as in the tragedy of the Roman worn theater; In any case, the term Kothurn is sometimes used synonymously in the literature.

Chopins have been recorded in Spain since 1438. The sole was about 10 centimeters high and consisted of cork , with very soft kid leather covered (span. Cordobán ). Due to popular fashion, the country's cork stocks were insufficient. Similar pedestal shoes ( zoccoli ) were also known in the 15th and 16th centuries in Italy, especially in Venice: There the soles, which widened towards the bottom, were between 25 and 74 centimeters high. In order to get around, servants had to be used to support the ladies in these shoes while walking.

The shaft was often made of velvet , brocade or very fine leather and was open at the back. The high soles on the visible outsides were covered with the same material.

In the second half of the 16th century, Chopins (or Kothurne) also belonged to the Spanish court costume that was widespread throughout Europe . The women wore them under the cone-shaped rigid hoop skirt ( vertugadin ) to appear taller and slimmer. The chopins were not visible, however, because the skirt was tailored much longer than necessary. So the lower part of the body from the hips down looked longer than normal. The Catholic Church is said to have welcomed this fashion and Italian clergy are said to have willingly granted the wearers of high heeled shoes the indulgence of sins because they could not indulge in the 'vice' of enjoyable dances (at most slow step dances like the pavans were possible with it).

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  Tall Venetian Chopino, 16th century ( Livrustkammaren , Stockholm)

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  Chopine, Italy, around 1600 ( Skokloster Castle )

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  Chopine of soft goatskin , Venice, late 16th century ( Landesmuseum Württemberg , Sculpture and Decorative Arts)

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  Red velvet chopine, Italy, 16th century (Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto , Ontario, Canada)

Drawing of Chopines

literature

• Paul Weber: Shoes: Three millennia in pictures . AT-Verlag, Aarau and Stuttgart 1994; 5th edition, 110 pages, many illustrations; ISBN 3-85502-159-7

Web links

• The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harold Koda: The Chopine
• Platform Diva: A History of The Platform Shoe ( Memento from December 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• "Chopine, Zoccolo, and Other Raised and High Heel Construction" , seen June 6, 2018 (with many interesting pictures)

See also

• Kothurn
• Trippe
• platform shoes
• Zoccoli

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ludmila Kybalová, Olga Herbenová, Milena Lamarová: The great image lexicon of fashion - from antiquity to the present , translated by Joachim Wachtel, Bertelsmann, 1967/1977: p. 164, p. 172 (Fig. 239), p. 574.
2. ↑ Ludmila Kybalová, Olga Herbenová, Milena Lamarová: The great image lexicon of fashion - from antiquity to the present , translated by Joachim Wachtel, Bertelsmann, 1967/1977: p. 164, p. 172 (Fig. 239), p. 574.
3. ↑ Ludmila Kybalová, Olga Herbenová, Milena Lamarová: The large image lexicon of fashion ... , ..., Bertelsmann, 1967/1977 : p. 164.