Clothing Definitions — definitions of garments and clothing terms from Apparel Search
Thigh-high boots are boots rising along the legs up to and above the knees. They are often considered to be kinky boots, used as fetish clothing in shoe fetishism, but the height is also a recurring mainstream fashion style and descends from functional riding and military boots. This page explains the boot's defining measurement — a shaft that reaches the thigh — its materials and heel forms, and how it differs from the go-go boot and the riding boot.
| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/thigh-high_boot ). Apparel Industry definition modified by Apparel Search 8/3/05 |
Boot names are mostly height names. Ankle boots, knee boots and over-the-knee boots mark points on the leg, and thigh-high is the top of that scale: the shaft continues past the knee to mid-thigh or higher. That extra length changes the boot's construction. A knee boot can stand in firm leather; a thigh-high shaft in soft material collapses unless it is closely fitted, made in a stretch fabric, held by the leg's shape, or supported by straps or garters. Fashion versions solve the problem with stretch suede and synthetic panels; fetish versions with tight leather or PVC; stage versions with zips and elastic gussets.
The style's history runs through riding boots and cavalry boots, where a high shaft protected the leg, into twentieth-century fashion, where the height became the point. In the 1960s the go-go boot stopped at or below the knee; thigh-high fashion boots appeared at the decade's end and have returned in cycles since, usually with short hemlines. Within footwear definitions, thigh-high boots sit alongside riding boots as the functional ancestor and kinky boots as the fetish category they are most often placed in, with stiletto-heeled and platform forms as their extreme variants.
Thigh-high boots are boots raising along the legs up to and above the knees. They are often considered to be kinky boots, used as fetish clothing in shoe fetishism.
Go-go boots are the fashionable, usually white, low-heeled boots of the 1960s, typically reaching the knee or below. Thigh-high boots are defined by greater height, rising above the knee to the thigh.
Thigh-high boots are made with the standard heel forms, including stiletto heels, platform soles and block heels, in materials from leather to stretch synthetics that hold the shaft up.