MANOLO Blahnik may be the man of the moment when it comes to glamorous footwear - but designer shoes go back long before his time.

People have been stepping out in style for centuries and a new exhibition demonstrates just how similar both old and new can be.

The Castle Museum, in York, has put together a selection of shoes and boots dating from the 1730s right up to the 1990s.

Highlights include 19th-Century elastic-sided boots in white kid and 18th-Century brocaded silk women's shoes with cut steel buckles - known as straights and designed to fit either foot.

There is also elegant cream satin evening wear from 1915 to 1920, with heels that were meant to be seen, as more daring attitudes of the times led to shortening hemlines.

Other styles are more familiar, such as the winkle-picker toe and the stiletto heels of the 1960s and hefty 1970s platform soles.

Costume curator Josie Sheppard said: "When you see the shoe display you realise that there really is no such thing as a new fashion, just a new take on what went before."