Quote Originally Posted by CMcG View Post
OK, I'm wrong. Shoes designed for 18th century ballroom dance, and having changed little over the years, have nothing to do with tradition.
I think the point is that in the case of formal footwear, form follows function. We don't just wear a particular type of dress shoe because we always have, but because for ballroom dances (and I don't just mean 'ballroom dancing' - I'm including such things as Scottish set dances, since we are talking about kilts as well here) a light, thin-soled shoe gives optimum performance.