A Silhouette From the ’40s Comes Back Wrong

By August of 1972, The New York Times had given platform shoes their own medical framing, running coverage on what doctors were calling a “broken-bone syndrome” tied directly to the shoe’s exaggerated height. Platform silhouettes had actually existed since the 1930s and ’40s, popularized by designers like Salvatore Ferragamo, but the 1970s version pushed the sole and heel to genuinely disorienting extremes.

What Podiatrists Were Actually Seeing

The injuries weren’t vague or anecdotal. Doctors specifically flagged a rise in sprained and broken ankles tied to the shoes’ unstable base and the reduced ability to feel the ground through several inches of rigid platform. A history compiled by the ASU FIDM Museum corroborates the broader trend, tracing platform boots through the disco and glam-rock scenes.

Ralph Nader Actually Weighed In

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader took the platform shoe safety concern seriously enough to address it directly. In a 1978 essay, fetched from Nader’s own archive, he cited injury-surveillance data the Consumer Product Safety Commission was actively collecting on footwear-related injuries. Speaking to the Podiatry Society of New York, Nader called the design trend an example of “the ultimate idiocy” in consumer footwear.

No Formal Investigation, But a Real Paper Trail

It’s worth being precise about what actually happened here. No single, formally named CPSC “investigation into platform shoes” exists as a discrete regulatory action. What’s real and documented is narrower but still substantial: the CPSC was routinely collecting injury-surveillance data that captured footwear-related harm, contemporary medical reporting was actively covering the “broken-bone syndrome” pattern doctors were seeing, and a nationally known consumer advocate was publicly pressuring the podiatric medical establishment to treat the trend as a genuine hazard.

The Trend Outlasted the Warnings

None of that documented concern actually killed the platform shoe. The style faded on its own by the early 1980s, then came back in waves through the ’90s, 2000s, and today’s chunky-sole revival. What survived from the 1970s isn’t a regulation or a ban, it’s the paper trail, pointing at the same conclusion doctors were reaching independently. Sometimes several inches of stacked cork really is exactly as dangerous as it looks.