Stiletto was used by anarchists as well as by members of various "Black Hand" (a method of extortion) organizations to assassinate Italian-Americans and others who either opposed the "Black Hand" or ignored its demands for blackmail. The "Black Hand" even established schools for training its members in the use of the stiletto. The emergence of fierce hand-to-hand combat in the trenches of World War I created a new need for stabbing weapons, resulting in the reappearance of the dagger and the stiletto. Many versions of these stabbing knives exist, some individually made by soldiers, while others were government-procured and authorized. On
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