Chopine

Chopines were originally used as a patten, clog, or overshoe to protect shoes and dresses from mud and street soil.

During the Renaissance, chopines became an article of women's fashion and were made increasingly taller; some extant examples exceed 50 cm (20 inches) in height.

[3] Shakespeare joked about the extreme height of the chopines in style in his day by using the word altitude (Hamlet 2.2, 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").

Surviving chopines are typically made of wood or cork, and those in the Spanish style were sometimes banded about with metal.

Their popularity in Spain was so great that the larger part of the country's cork supplies went towards production of the shoes.

Some argue that the style originated in Spain,[9] as there are many extant examples and a great amount of pictorial and written reference going back to the 14th century.