Opinion There’s a reason why haute couture is playing footsie with the ‘ugly shoe’

Something’s afoot in the world of fashion. Brands like Birkenstock and Vibram are seeing a surge in sales, while ballet sneakers, bulbous 3D-printed flip-flops and gumboots set the agenda at the recent Copenhagen Fashion Week. Clearly, the pandemic-era prioritising of comfort has morphed into an abiding love for shoes that don’t pinch and bite with every step or require the use of prescription insoles.

It’s not as though haute couture hasn’t played footsie with the “ugly shoe” before. From Balenciaga (with its notorious collaboration with Crocs) to Alexander McQueen (creator of the claw-like “armadillo” platform heels made famous by Lady Gaga), many of the most established fashion houses have regularly designed footwear that is apparently misshapen or exaggerated in proportion, and well nigh impossible to wear. Such deliberate gestures towards “anti-fashion” are meant to provoke and break through conventional thinking, but unlike with garments — such as the deeply polarising styles like velour tracksuits and drop-crotch pants — “ugly” shoes have rarely seen such acceptance from the typically fashion conscious consumer.

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It comes down to the beauty vs comfort divide that has always been sharpest in footwear. The fantasy of the glass slipper may inspire many a delicate creation but in real life, rare would be the individual who wants to slip her foot — a complex, load-bearing structure of bone, muscle and tissue — into such an obviously uncomfortable creation. The current trend, on the other hand, is mostly centered around footwear that supports and cushions — a far cry from the unwieldy heels and rigid soles that have long epitomised style when it comes to shoes. It marks, in its own way, a liberation from hardened ideals of beauty, expanding the definition of fashion to make room for that which has, for too long, been ridiculed and excluded. Comfort matters, and bunions and hammer toes are too high a price to pay to look good.