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
Patten (shoe) well-swept and paved streets. The motto of the London Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers, the former representative guild for this trade, was and remains: "Recipiunt Fœminæ Sustentacula Nobis", Latin for "Women Receive Support From Us". The 19th-century invention of cheap rubber galoshes gradually displaced the patten, as did the widespread use of urban paving, especially elevated, paved pathways only for pedestrians- the now ubiquitous pavements, sidewalk in American English or hard road surfaces. Wearing of pattens inside church was discouraged, if not outright forbidden: perhaps because of the noise they made, the oft-commented "clink" being the consensus term for the sound;