The influx of new trends and aesthetics descending on our FYPs each week can be exhausting. From coquettes to whimsigoths, fashion TikTok’s never-ending fixation on finding the next niche thing has led to a wave of whimsical shoes taking over the zeitgeist. Anything that says “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m weird, I’m a weirdo, I don’t fit in and I don’t want to fit in” is very much, well, in.
A myriad of weird shoes are currently trending – from the ever-growing cult following of Margiela Tabis (perhaps the OG ‘if you know you know’ holy grail fashion item, now seeded out to the masses via the internet) to the fun Melissa collaborations (most recently with Collina Strada and Y/Project) that make grown adults pine for jelly shoes. Not to mention the sold-out-in-minutes Kiko Kostadinov x Hysteric Glamour x Asics sneakers, which look like a cyberpunk take on Lelli Kellies. TikTok trend forecaster and ballet flat oracle Mandy Lee (@oldloserinbrooklyn) recently said: “I collect weird and wacky shoes and these are the ones on my wish list,” revealing a selection that included denim boots, hairy clogs, and wool backless ankle boots from the new Camper x Ottolinger collaboration. As idiosyncratic as these styles might be, they all reveal a collective shift towards both nostalgia and the avant-garde across the wider fashion industry.
As the cultural climate demands, brands are pushing boundaries and experimenting with performative pieces with the intention of going viral. This can be extremely effective as free advertising (look no further than Coperni’s paint-on dress moment at PFW) or can tragically backfire if it leans into poor taste, or is too obviously geared towards social media hype. To walk that tightrope then, no pun intended, shoes are an easy gateway to virality, especially on the runway. Loewe is a notable success story here, with their surreal balloon pumps and Daisy Duck shoes. Miu Miu, too, whose viral pieces have prompted a huge resurgence for the brand, built on the huge moment that was last season’s micro mini skirt to spearhead this season’s growing obsession with ballet flats — the girl-next-door equivalent of weird shoes. It makes sense that Miu Miu was named Lyst’s brand of the year, given its satin ballerinas have been seen on everyone from Gen Z influencers to Solange Knowles, obtaining an instant cult status.
Smaller brands too, are getting in on the weird shoe hype. Florence-based AVAVAV is known for its crazy footwear, breezing through this viral hysteria with great moments including Doja Cat wearing their cult finger toe boots at the 2021 VMAs. AVAVAV mostly uses waste materials and builds its identity through parody and absurdity. Creative director Beate Karlsson brings an unpredictable energy to the designs, from her signature four-toed boots to the oversized Yeti faux fur moon boots from AVAVAV’s SS23 collection. But virality comes with its own costs; it can distract from the rest of the creations. “Our shoes have become more famous than the brand itself,” Beate said in a recent interview with 1Granary. “There’s so much attention to them that it’s quite hard to design other pieces as well because people only look at the shoes.”
But why have bizarre shoes taken hold this year? Partially, it’s a response to our need for exuberance, escapism and irony in an increasingly bleak world. We are seeking obscurity and challenging “basic” fashion through self-expression, creativity and looking camp right in the eye. This sense of irony and a yearning for simpler times, namely childhood, is at the heart of Seoul-based avant-garde creative Sun Woo’s designs, which are informed by geometrical, magical designs and patterns. The CSM alumni is inspired by childhood puzzles and tangrams; her signature ‘tri-quare’ patent knee-high boots and heels have one squared and one pointed toe. Dutch brand Yume Yume also incorporates kidcore shapes in their puffy shoes and Love heels (which have a heart for a heel). Amy Crookes’ designs, meanwhile, are an ode to girlhood, employing shirring techniques to create coquettish, playful and hyper-feminine kitten heels in bold colours and prints.
As we’re pining for childhood and simpler times, much of this wave of weird footwear is informed by y2k nostalgia too (which goes some way to explaining the resurgence of kitten heels and “boots with the fur”). Content creator Susielola meanwhile said in a recent YouTube video: “I’m literally running to the shoe sections of charity shops because I can’t wait to find the ugliest, weirdest grandma shoes.” When nostalgia reigns, of course imitation is inevitable. Wearing something strange, then, offers opportunity for expression, individuality, a way to flex your fashion knowledge. This collective eccentric mindset is an extension, and natural progression, of the weird girl aesthetic — the FKA Twigs and Bella Hadid-esque maximalist trend of mixing styles and pairing items that wouldn’t usually go together — but also a need for online clout, standing out from the FYP crowd, and keeping an audience engaged. We’ve moved away from pretty-but-basic, which can get boring very quickly, and now we’re going goblin mode.
London-based Romanian designer Ancuta Sarca has been upcycling trainers into kitten heels since her start in 2019. “What really attracts me is the idea of fake glamour or elegance made out of trash, and making sexy/chic things out of something that’s the opposite of that,” she told i-D back in 2019, predicting the 2022 weird-girl zeitgeist. Her Nike hybrids have been cult for a while, and she is partly responsible for the current kitten-heel craze.
But it’s not all kidcore and kitten heels and warm fuzzy memories of childhood. On the darker end of the weird shoe spectrum, there’s a rise in dystopian, dressing-up-for-the-apocalypse fashion too. Blame it on climate change doom and economic recession burnout, or feeling like we are approaching the end of the world. This dystopian mood already existed in clothing, but has migrated somewhat to footwear, with moon boots and Rick Owens’ brutalist shoe silhouettes. This futuristic aesthetic emerges in Swedish brand Eytys’ sea urchin-like spikey soles on their loafers and sneakers, which look like they belong to the Mad Max: Fury Road universe, and London-based Hernán Guardamagna, who repurposes leather and upcycled materials for his industrial and brutalist-inspired moccasins and boots. Then there’s SCRY, a brand inspired by nature and architecture, using 3D-printing to create innovative designs that look like Zaha Hadid buildings for your feet.
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While it might look silly at first, at its core, the weird shoe era we’re living in isn’t simply down to a trend cycle constantly seeking attention and virality. It’s more likely a response to the mood and concerns of society, and a yearning, too, for innovation but also to revisit old styles — something that we lacked in the previous decade of “perfect basics” and minimal silhouettes. We’re reinventing old aesthetics by adding “sleaze” to them. We’re gaudy. We’re embracing decadence. We’re rejecting beauty and perfectionism, from makeup and hair all the way down to our shoes. As contemporary philosopher Julia Fox has put it: “ugly is in”.