“Only a go-go girl in love with someone who didn’t care
Only twenty-one, she was a young girl just in from somewhere.”
Go Go Round - Gordon Lightfoot
If you watched Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, one od the prominent 1960’s features, along with paisley and his stereotypically-English bad teeth, is Elizabeth Hurley’s “Go-Go boots.”
Go-Go boots were a low-heeled style of women’s fashion boot made popular in the mid-sixties when short skirts and shorter dresses began pushing the fashion world to focus on the female leg. It is said, but not proven, that the term “go-go” refers to the fact that they were often seen on and associated with dancers at discotheques such as L.A.’s Whisky a Go Go. The “Go-Go Girls” were sometimes suspended in cages in the air to each side of the stage and were known for their jump style of dancing.
The designer, André Courrèges, is given credit for the Go-Go boot which was a low-heeled, calf-high boot made of white plastic with a clear cut-out slot near the top. However, this is just a rumor.
From Lightfoot to The Go-Go’s
One of my favorite songs in the late ’60’s was Go Go Round by Gordon Lightfoot which gave his account of the futility of a dancer in a club falling for a musician. (Personally, I’m glad that this way of thinking never caught on!)
Then Nancy Sinatra’s 1966 number-one hit These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ helped solidify the boot and the girls who wore them into pop culture. Her picture on the album cover sold more records than the music! As well, Space Age boots worn by a pre-Vietnam-ranting Jane Fonda in 1968’s science fiction film Barbarella made her a sex symbol a couple of years before she jumped into an anti-aircraft battery in Hanoi.
However, even when hemlines dropped the boots carried on in one form or another. Stevie Nicks was famous for them in her “Gypsy” look as was Ann Wilson of Heart.
And the Go-Go’s named their band after the style that shook the ’60’s. So, I think the boots will outlive the legend.