Kinky boots
Encyclopedia
Boot
A boot is a type of footwear but they are not shoes. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle and extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is clearly distinguishable from the rest of the sole, even if the two are made of one piece....
s with extreme characteristics which are intended to present a dramatic sexy appearance, such as by a prostitute or dominatrix
Dominatrix
Dominatrix or mistress is a woman or women who takes the dominant role in bondage, discipline and sadomasochism, or BDSM. A common form of address for a submissive to a dominatrix is "mistress", "ma'am", "domina" or "maîtresse"...
. Extreme characteristics might include very high heels, thigh- or crotch-high length, or unusual colors or materials. They can be related to boot fetish
Boot fetish
Boot fetishism is very closely related to shoe fetishism. Many of the same sexual appeals regarded high-heeled shoes apply to boots. In most cases the fetish of the boot is accompanied by a fetish for the material which it is made from. Examples could be leather, rubber, or latex...
ism, a kind of shoe fetishism
Shoe fetishism
Shoe fetishism is the attribution of attractive sexual qualities to shoes or other footwear as a matter of sexual preference, psychosexual disorder, and an alternative or complement to a relationship with a partner. It has also been known as retifism, after Nicolas-Edme Rétif , called Rétif de la...
which thus make them a form of fetish clothing. The term is ambiguous, since what can be considered kinky by some can be seen as elegant fashion by others.
Boots of this type, and specifically the thigh-high leather boots worn by Honor Blackman
Honor Blackman
Honor Blackman is an English actress, known for the roles of Cathy Gale in The Avengers and Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger .-Early life:...
in her role as Cathy Gale
Cathy Gale
Dr Cathy Gale was a fictional character, played by Honor Blackman, on the 1960s British series The Avengers. She was the first regular female partner of John Steed following the departure of Steed's original male co-star, Dr David Keel...
in The Avengers
The Avengers (TV series)
The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series set in the 1960s Britain. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed . Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants...
, are referred to in the 1964 song "Kinky Boots
Kinky Boots (song)
"Kinky Boots" is a 1960s song written by Herbert Kretzmer and David Lee, and recorded by Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman, stars of the television series The Avengers....
" by Blackman and her Avengers co-star Patrick Macnee
Patrick Macnee
Patrick Macnee is an English actor, best known for his role as the secret agent John Steed in the series The Avengers.-Early life:...
. Usually, nowadays the term is connected to the type of thigh-length boots
Thigh-length boots
Thigh-high boots, known also as thigh-length boots or simply thigh boots, are boots that extend above the knees. Other synonyms include over-the-knee boots , and especially when cuffed, pirate boots...
used by Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts
Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
in the 1990 movie Pretty Woman
Pretty Woman
Pretty Woman is a 1990 romantic comedy film set in Los Angeles, California. Written by J.F. Lawton and directed by Garry Marshall, this motion picture features Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, and also Hector Elizondo, Ralph Bellamy, and Jason Alexander in supporting roles. Roberts played the only...
and by Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
in her Re-Invention Tour
The Re-Invention Tour
The Re-Invention World Tour was the sixth concert tour by American singer-songwriter Madonna. It supported her ninth studio album American Life and visited North America and Europe. Madonna was inspired to create the tour, after taking part in an art installation called X-STaTIC PRo=CeSS, directed...
in 2004.
Origin of the term
The term "kinky boots" was coined in the UK in the early 1960s when high boots, which had previously been worn in the "underground" fetish and sadomasochistic world of the dominatrix and her clients, broke into mainstream female fashion. The term "sexual kinkKink (sexual)
In human sexuality, kinkiness and kinky are terms used to refer to a playful usage of sexual concepts in an accentuated, and unambiguously expressive form....
", meaning not entirely straight, was used, often in a jocular sense, to describe an unusual sexual desire that was not sufficiently deviant to attract the word perversion. Since men who were attracted to women in boots, which symbolised power, were heterosexual, the term "kinky" was applied to them, rather than "perverted", which at that time mainly implied homosexuality. The term thus became applied to the boots that were worn by women because of their previous association with SM.
The original kinky boots were calf- to knee-length pull-on black leather boots with 3- to 4-inch heels and pointed toes. This was the kind of boot worn by Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg
Diana Rigg
Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
(Emma Peel
Emma Peel
Emma Peel was a fictional spy played by Diana Rigg in the British 1960s adventure television series The Avengers. She was born Emma Knight, the daughter of an industrialist, Sir John Knight.-Casting:...
) in the original Avengers television series. Capitalising on their popularity, Blackman and Macnee (John Steed
John Steed
John Steed is a fictional character and the central protagonist on the popular British series The Avengers and The New Avengers, played by Patrick Macnee and Ralph Fiennes in the movie....
) cut the single record called "Kinky Boots
Kinky Boots (song)
"Kinky Boots" is a 1960s song written by Herbert Kretzmer and David Lee, and recorded by Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman, stars of the television series The Avengers....
", which became a Top 5 UK charts' hit in 1990, 27 years after its original release. "Kinky Boot Beasts" make a brief appearance in the Sea of Monsters sequence in the 1968 Beatles'
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
movie Yellow Submarine.
The boots were soon available in other colours, white being popular, and all heel heights. Later, from the mid '60s onwards, the stiletto went out of fashion and calf and even thigh boots with lower thick heels or even flat heels came into fashion. These made it across the Atlantic Ocean to the States and were called "go-go boots
Go-go boots
Go-go boots are a low-heeled style of women's fashion boot worn since the mid-sixties when fashion silhouettes focused on accentuating the leg...
" in the U.S.; however in the UK they were mostly still called "kinky boots" and the term was still being applied to the high-heeled platform boot, a popular fashion item of the 1970s.
Present use
Boots are a common female fashion these days, so the term is now usually only used for the original type of dominatrix S&M boot — very high stiletto boots, generally of thigh length and in either black or white or bright shiny colours.The film Kinky Boots
Kinky Boots (film)
Kinky Boots is a 2005 comedy film written by Geoff Deane and Tim Firth, about a traditional Northampton shoemaker, based in Earls Barton, who turns to producing fetishism footwear in order to save the failing family business and the jobs of his workers...
was released in 2005
2005 in film
- Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2005...
and told the story of an ailing company of high quality traditional men's shoe manufacturers that found a new lease on life making high heeled footwear for transgender people and drag queens.
See also
- Ballet bootBallet bootThe ballet boot is a contemporary style of fetish footwear that merges the pointe shoe with a high heel. The idea is to force the wearer's feet almost en pointe, like those of a ballerina, with the aid of long, slender heels...
- Go-go bootsGo-go bootsGo-go boots are a low-heeled style of women's fashion boot worn since the mid-sixties when fashion silhouettes focused on accentuating the leg...
- Knee-high bootsKnee-high bootsKnee-high boots are boots that rise to the knee, or slightly thereunder. They are generally tighter around the leg shaft and ankle than at the top. Mostly made of a synthetic rubber , they are used by fishermen, dairy workers, stable hands, duck hunters, clammers, etc. to protect the feet from...
- Thigh-length bootsThigh-length bootsThigh-high boots, known also as thigh-length boots or simply thigh boots, are boots that extend above the knees. Other synonyms include over-the-knee boots , and especially when cuffed, pirate boots...