VIDEO: The Most Bizarre Shoes in the World

The great thing about fashion is that pretty much anything goes. The bad thing about fashion is that pretty much anything goes.

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Fashion fails are pretty common and these wacky shoes are proof of that. You wouldn’t wear them to the bar, you couldn’t wear them to work and heck, you most likely wouldn’t even secretly wear them around your own house! Yes, they’re really that bad.

According to Wikipedia, cultures have different customs regarding footwear. These include not using any in some situations, usually bearing a symbolic meaning. This can however also be imposed on specific individuals to place them at a practical disadvantage against shod people, if they are excluded from having footwear available or are prohibited from using any.

This usually takes place in situations of captivity, such as imprisonment or slavery. In these cases the use of footwear categorically indicates the exercise of power as against being devoid of footwear, evidently indicating inferiority.

Footwear is in use since earliest human history, archeological finds of complete shoes date back to the copper age (ca. 5.000 BCE). Some ancient civilizations, such as Egypt however saw no practical need for footwear due to convenient climatic and landscape situations and used shoes primarily as ornaments and insignia of power.

During the Middle Ages, men and women wore pattens, commonly seen as the predecessor of the modern high-heeled shoe, while the poor and lower classes in Europe, as well as slaves in the New World, were usually barefoot. In the 15th century, chopines were created in Turkey, and were usually 7-8 inches (17.7-20.3 cm) high.

During the 16th century, royalty such as Catherine de Medici and Mary I of England began wearing high-heeled shoes to make them look taller or larger than life. By 1580, men also wore them, and a person with authority or wealth might be described as, well-heeled. In modern society, high-heeled shoes are a part of women’s fashion and are widespread in certain countries around the world.

Modern footwear is usually made up of leather or plastic, and rubber. In fact, leather was one of the original materials used for the first versions of a shoe. The soles can be made of rubber or plastic, sometimes having a sheet of metal inside. Roman sandals had sheets of metal on their soles so that it would not bend out of shape.

More recently, footwear providers like Nike, have begun to source environmentally friendly materials.

In Europe, the footwear industry has declined in the last years. Whereas in 2005, there were about 27,000 firms, in 2008 there were only 24,000. As well as the number of firms, the direct employment has decreased. The only factors that remained almost steady was the value added at factor cost and production value.

In the U.S., the annual footwear industry revenue was $48 billion in 2012. There are about 29,000 shoe stores in the U.S. and the shoe industry employs about 189,000 people. Due to rising imports, these numbers are also declining. The only way of staying afloat in the shoe market is to establish a presence in niche markets.