Recently, outside an after party in South London, I somehow found myself being berated by a stoned barefoot partygoer for having never walked through the streets sans shoes. “You’ve never actually stood on the earth? Felt the ground and its vibrations against your feet?” We were standing on an ash and cigarette butt littered concrete slab in Peckham. Eventually conceding to his nagging, I stripped myself of my trainers and went to pull my final sock off when my dainty Elioú bracelet on my wrist caught on something and snapped. And as I scrambled to pick up pearls and glass daisy beads off the pavement, while now being berated for being “too attached to material things”, the sudden loss of my favourite bracelet felt like a divine presence saying: “WTF, put your shoes back on freak.”
Earlier this month Jacob Elordi sent the world into shock with his feet. After a series of thirst posts of him working out — sweaty and barefoot — at the gym with Barry Keoghan had the internet talking, the online world went into panic mode at resurfaced paparazzi pics from two years ago of him taking a stroll in LA, accessorising his light-wash jeans and leopard print fleece with a Starbies, a book and his bare soles.
Granted, Jacob is Australian, and the fit would look far less out of place in his hometown than on the grubby Cali streets, but he’s not the only one recently to go through life like a character in a Quentin Tarantino movie. A recent pic of Shawn Mendes’ “smoothie squad” showed one of the popstar’s posse was out on the streets with his feet entirely exposed. A video of Selena Gomez barefoot on stage at last year’s SAG Awards resurfaced recently, while in March The New York Times reported on Joseph DeRuvo Jr., a man who hadn’t worn shoes in 20 years, constantly being kicked out of restaurants and shops, and carrying a sunglass case of tweezers to pick debris from his soles and thoroughly scrubbing his feet each night before getting into bed with his wife. Who said romance was dead?
On TikTok, the deeply uncomfortable videos of The Barefoot Guy asking people on the street to strip off their shoes and review each others feet constantly go viral while, on the runway, Etro SS23 men’s had men in summery looks go barefoot with toe rings and Thom Browne turned barefoot models into human-alien hybrids for AW23, with Saturn-ring headpieces and long, twisting white nails attached to their fingers and toes. Then there was the most recent episode of Succession, where Alexander Skarsgård’s eccentric billionaire character Lukas Mattson steps off his private jet to a business meeting, walking along the airport tarmac barefoot.
Over recent seasons we’ve been living in the era of the weird shoe. From those big red ones that had their 15 minutes of viral fame during NYFW to AVAVAV’s spindly finger boots and the toe Uggs, footwear is the new way for fashion to be indulgent, absurd and newsworthy, making the ugly chic. Jonathan Anderson has become no stranger to absurd footwear on the runway, such as the Daisy Duck or balloon heels at Loewe or the Wellipets loafers at his namesake brand, while the Margiela Tabi and Miu Miu ballet flats went from quirky IYKYK pieces to a common sight in any fashion-adjacent space. Once the footwear of choice of the exhibitionist fashion girlies, who get a slight thrill from the prospect of a confused fellow commuter potentially taking a picture of their shoes with the caption “what are those??”, a cow-hoof split-toe shoe or absurdly large boot isn’t quite as unexpected as it once was. In an age when more and more people are walking out in wacky shoes, the only sure way to cause a stir is to casually step out barefoot like it’s the most normal thing to do.
When foot fetishes are more common than ever (GQ reported feet were the most searched fetish term on PornHub and who doesn’t have a side business selling foot content on OnlyFans these days?), the response to the paparazzi pictures of Jacob and Shawn’s friend’s toes out on main shows they still have the power to irk the vast majority of people. Understandably so. How do you not have an anxiety attack navigating the streets of a major city — shards of glass, litter and sooty dirt everywhere — barefoot? How do you visit a friend without dirtying their beige carpets? What happens if you step in something sticky, or something worse? And the biggest question of all… why?
You could argue the barefoot trend is a response to the cost of living crisis if it wasn’t largely rich celebrities at the forefront. “It wasn’t really planned,” Alexander said about the scene in Succession. “I was wearing slides and the private jet we were shooting in had a very, very comfortable carpet.” Deciding his character would walk barefoot on the plane, he then took it even further. “I thought it’d be visually quite interesting maybe if he just casually walked out without shoes on.” The capitalist antithesis of the Roy family’s quiet luxury, Lukas’ normcore, tech bro, uber-comfort style adds to his disconcerting power. He is so untouchable that he is completely at ease doing something (walking to a business meeting barefoot) that would make the vast majority of people feel vulnerable and exposed.
That is what makes going barefoot in public so disconcertingly weird. Those participating, seemingly live without fear. Perhaps that’s because the celebrities involved are powerful enough that the worry someone might call them out for their behaviour is lost on them (the man in The New York Times’ article also noted his privilege of not having to worry about the police the way a POC person walking barefoot in public would). But more than their lack of fear of repercussions, the shoeless community is seemingly not tied down by societal expectations, or fears of being stared at, or personal hygiene, or worries strangers aren’t going to think their feet are cute. And that’s weird.