The ballet flat, first introduced for off-stage wear in the 1940s, is relevant again thanks to indie sleaze and our enduring quest for comfort. How the style became a cool-girl must-have.
the many factors that have fueled ballet slippers’ recent ascent to coolness, I’d count: indie sleaze, “Bridgerton,” lug-sole fatigue and the pandemic-induced pursuit of comfort. The shoes’ appearance in the fall Miu Miu show last month, paired with scrunched-up tube socks and hip-slung tennis skirts, suggests this is a trend with legs.
It was designer Hedi Slimane who first prominently put the ballerina-inspired shoe back onto the runway in his spring 2021 collection for Celine. Meanwhile, indie sleaze Instagram accounts have been documenting the hipster aesthetic of the mid-noughties—think Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs—a time now viewed as a more innocent, golden age of style, when party girls like Kate Moss wore Repetto Cendrillon ballet flats.