Stiletto heel Andre Perugia, who began designing shoes in 1906. It seems unlikely that he invented the stiletto, but he is probably the first firmly-documented designer of the high, slim heel. The word stiletto applied to a heel is derived from a knife or dagger stiletto, which is a long, thin blade, to which the heel of the shoe is similar in profile. Its usage in footwear first appeared in print in the "New Statesman" magazine in 1959: "She came ...forward, her walk made lopsided by the absence of one heel of the stilettos". High-heel shoes were worn by men and women
Stiletto heel in the early 1980s. Subsequently, round-toe shoes with slightly thicker (sometimes cone-shaped) semi-stiletto heels, often very high in an attempt to convey slenderness were frequently worn at the office with wide-shouldered power suits. The style survived through much of the 1980s but almost completely disappeared during the 1990s, when professional and college-age women took to wearing shoes with thick, block heels. The slender stiletto heel staged a major comeback after 2000 when young women adopted the style for dressing up office wear or adding a feminine touch to casual wear, like jeans. Stiletto heels are particularly associated with the image