Boots were originally meant to be working shoes. Instead of wearing flat shoes that let water and dirt get in, you’d wear boots, which were generally thicker, sturdier and longer and thus ideal for working. But, much like jeans – that also started out as working clothes but are now a fashion item – boots have taken the leap from merely functional pieces of footwear to items of style and fashion. Ladies boots especially tend to lose all functional appeal and instead be made to simply look good.
The addition of the high heel to the boot is probably what made the whole difference in looking at boots as fashion items. The practicality that they had was lost with that heel, and they become another thing that you put on simply to look good. And there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just the way the trends tend to go. And boots are a particularly pretty footwear item that doesn’t seem to go out of style. Instead it keeps returning in different shapes and styles, matching whatever the fashion trend of the time is. Naturally, you can still find working boots out there, as they are still useful for work, but the majority of them is simply meant to be pretty.
