Stiletto some employed a telescoping blade. These Italian switchblades were commonly and popularly referred to as stilettos, since most incorporated a long, slender blade tapering to a needle-like point, together with a slim-profile handle and vestigial cross-guard. The majority of these Italian stiletto switchblade knives used a now-iconic bayonet-style blade with a single sabre-grind edge (often unsharpened) and a long opposing false edge. As with the medieval stiletto, the stiletto switchblade was designed primarily as an offensive weapon, optimized for thrusting rather than cutting. Most of these knives were designed with a locking device which locked the blade in the open
Stiletto heel popularity in the 1950s, they reached their most refined shape in the early 1960s, when the toes of the shoes which bore them became as slender and elongated as the stiletto heels themselves. As a result of the overall sharpness of outline, it was customary for women to refer to the whole shoe as a "stiletto", not just the heel, via synecdoche ("pars pro toto"). Although they officially faded from the scene after the Beatle era began, their popularity continued at street level, and women stubbornly refused to give them up even after they could no longer readily find them