Chopine Chopine A chopine is a type of women's platform shoe that was popular in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. Chopines were originally used as a patten, clog, or overshoe to protect the shoes and dress from mud and street soil. Chopines were popularly worn in Venice by both courtesans and patrician women from ca. 1400–1700. Besides their practical uses, the height of the chopine became a symbolic reference to the cultural and social standing of the wearer; the higher the chopine, the higher the status of the wearer. High chopines allowed a woman to tower over others. During the
Pig in a poke Aphrodite", a story by Rhys Davies, titled "A Pig in a Poke", was published, in which a Welsh collier takes a woman from London for his wife and regrets it. (Boulton 1993: p. 278) The title of Georges Feydeau's 1888 play "Chat en poche" is taken from the French expression. Pig in a poke The idioms pig in a poke and sell a pup (or buy a pup) refer to a confidence trick originating in the Late Middle Ages, when meat was scarce, but cats and dogs were not. The scheme entailed the sale of a suckling pig in a