Stilettos, we hardly knew ye.
Just one season into a pointy-toed pump return for fall ’23, the pendulum may already be swinging back to the ground.
At New York Fashion Week, it more or less started the runway at Proenza Schouler, which held its spring ’24 collection show on Sept. 10. The brand always shows footwear with just the right amount of verve — and has always offered some sort of creative flat, even when they aren’t of the moment. But this time around, a soft perforated leather style with high coverage padded down the runways.
New York Fashion Week may not be the most footwear-forward of the hosting cities of fashion month, but that didn’t stop a strong shoe message from being delivered: The ballet flat is most definitely back.
For many, it never left. Ask anyone who works in an industry that demands (even post-pandemic) a more stringent and traditional professional dress code, such as finance or law. For those wearing a pantsuit, a skirt suit, or even just a skinny black jean and blazer in that setting, they’re likely to have a ballet flat at the ready. It has long been both a well known commuting shoe (so you can change into those pumps when it counts) or the all-day, go-to shoe for professionals that just need to be comfortable.
But in the fashion world, the shoe’s resurgence in the trend cycle is more recent. Over the past few years, the ballet flat has popped up here and there in collections, both as a suggestion for a house shoe (remember those pandemic era needs?) and a rebuke of the chunky soled loafer and boot that’s dominated footwear trends for so long.
This summer, movement towards the shoe began to build. A mesh flat from The Row that went all the way back to its spring ’20 collections (one of the lost seasons) came back on the scene. It was joined by a fishnet ballet flat from Alaïa that has become one of the year’s biggest It shoes. Other brands followed, and the mesh ballet flat became something of the summer’s sleeper shoe trend.
With that momentum, New York Fashion Week’s designers seemed to declare that this is not a micro trend. At 3.1 Phillip Lim, the namesake designer staged his first show in four years, paying homage to both New York City’s Chinatown and his heritage with a Chinese mesh slipper, done in a dainty ballet style in black and pretty pastels.
At Staud, model walked either barefoot or in the most simple of satin ballet flats, floating on a raised catwalk in low-slung skirts.
And Tory Burch — queen of the ballet flat — had plenty of ideas for updating the style. While other designers experimented with higher vamps and more material (Proenza Schouler) or the mesh trend (Phillip Lim), Burch continued to explore the balance between flat sandal and ballet flat. Footwear was a hybrid of the two, complete with heightened insoles, piercing-like hardware and half-covered uppers. And a particular Mary Jane style flat (not a ballet flat but of the same wholly grounded effect) read a little like a Birkenstock Boston clog. The ballet flat’s comeback seems contingent on heavy innovation this time around.
For Paul Andrew, the ballet flat is a key style in his spring ’24 collection. The shoe designer returned to New York Fashion Week with his first presentation since pausing his brand while serving as creative director at Ferragamo. Andrew’s ballerinas are a bit more traditional, in satin with a stretchy shape. But instead of a delicate bow, there is one of the designer’s signature emerald cut jewels. And the flat’s higher vamp is reminiscent of the mesh flats already making strides.
As London Fashion Week kicks off and fashion month continues on to Milan and Paris, how the trend will take shape through the rest of the spring ’24 is still unknown. Will the big European fashion houses jump on board? Until then, one can watch the New York City streets and TikTok alike for the fun part: How they’re really being worn.
