Which is why Small helped create an entire exhibit devoted to high heels. Currently at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the show goes on tour this Spring.
"Women used to wear hats all the time, they used to wear gloves all the time," she said. "And they don't anymore for the most part. But they still wear high-heeled shoes."
But interestingly enough, women weren't the first wore them. High-heeled shoes were first worn by MEN. And these heels weren't as much about mobility as nobility.
One painting in the exhibition show King Louis XIV of France wearing very high, red-heeled shoes. "Height and elevation has always had something to do with indicating class, privilege, power," said Small.