15 Bizarre Fashion Trends You Won't Believe Once Existed

6. Chopines

Reign: 1580 - 1620 The original Spice Girl platform was a shoe named the Chopine or the "overshoe". Popular in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, it was originally designed to keep a women's clothing and her shoes dry from mud, but it soon became something to show off one's status. It was quite simple really, the higher the shoe was, the higher your status was and some chopines reached heights of about 50cm (20inches). Even Shakespeare thought the "it" shoes of his time were so ridiculous and joked about them in Hamlet: the prince greets one of the visiting players, - the adolescent boy who would have played the female parts in the all-male troupe - by noting how much "nearer to heaven" the lad had grown since he last saw him €” "by the altitude of a chopine."