Ballet shoes are back. Everyone says so—trend, TikTok Girly, new york timesInstagram A leading figure in the fashion world, the whole gang. Shoes from trend-setting brands like Alaïa and Miu Miu are in stores, and hundreds of cheaper alternatives are available online at fast fashion giants like Shein and Temu. You can run away from the return of ballet flats, but you can’t hide. And depending on how long your feet were in shoes the last time it hit, you might not be able to run.
Ballet flats (a slipper-like, largely unstructured shoe style reminiscent of ballerina pointe shoes) never completely disappeared from the fashion world, but they were definitely cool before that in the 2000s. It was mid to late. At the time, teenagers were dressing in Juicy Couture and Abercrombie & Fitch, and Lauren Conrad was ruining his life by turning down a trip to Paris. hill, fashion magazines were filled with flats from Lanvin, Chloe, and Tory Burch. This style was paired with every kind of outfit imaginable, so to speak, with the chunky white sneakers of the time.
How you feel about the shoe comeback probably has a lot to do with your age. If you’re young enough to witness the popularity of ballet flats for the first time, they may seem like a pleasantly retro, feminine break from lug soles and sneakers.If you’re over 30, like me, the whole thing can make you feel a little sick. old. Physically, ballet shoes are a nightmare for your back, knees, and arches. When it comes to support, most products only offer so much more than you can get from socks. Psychologically, the injury can be even more serious. 20 years is a normal amount of time for a trend to pass before being revived as retro, but considering it is banished from the zeitgeist in favor of those who see their youth as something to be mined. It is also a rude interval of inspiration, and therefore as a decisive one. In the past.
Trends are interesting things. Especially in the field of fashion, people think of trends as the domain of the very young, but following their trajectory is often not so simple. Take normcore dad sneakers for example. In the mid-2010s, the shoe became popular among millennials who were then entering their 30s, as it was the sneaker of choice for retired baby boomers. But for this trend to reach rare heights of population-level relevance, very young people will ultimately need to sign on. In the case of dad sneakers, it took years for the Zoomers to come out en masse, but their endorsement has kept the bulky New Balances popular for nearly a decade. We are well past the point where most trends go down.
The resurgence of ballet flats is a sign that this new fashion consumer group is asserting itself more broadly in the market. Trends supported by young people tend to oscillate between two extremes. The enduring popularity of dad shoes has almost ensured that some young people will eventually start looking for something sleeker and more modest. The ballet flats fit perfectly into the turn-of-the-millennium fashion tropes Zoomers have been tinkering with for years: over-plucked eyebrows, low-rise jeans, and tiny sunglasses.
In fact, ballet shoes are a very appropriate symbol of generational change, since they are the manifestation of the stupidity of youth. Sure, wearing them is an act of violence against podiatry, but there are more downsides. Many ballet shoes are so flimsy that they look worn out after just a few wears. Difficult to match with socks, bad smell like a foot Almost as quickly. Ballet flats are impractical shoes that sneak into your closet under the guise of practicality.Hey, those aren’t high heels!And they prey on people who don’t know better yet.
So what does that mean for people? do Do you know better? First, it means that the long adolescence that some millennials went through after the Great Recession is finally, indisputably over. We are getting older, at least relatively speaking. Every generation eventually loses the cultural power that is unique to youth, and we witness young people making mistakes that seem obvious in hindsight. Ballet companies remind us that people our age are no longer the default protagonists of culture as they once were. . When I was in middle school in the mid-’90s, I was begging for Candy’s wooden-soled platform sandals, and my girlfriend’s mother got furious and told me she couldn’t get them because there were too many people. I remember. Fell off a platform in the 70’s. This is the first time I remember thinking of my mother as a person who existed long before I was conscious of her. He was the type of person who bought cool but reckless clothes and uncomfortable shoes, and attended parties where he could barely stand. .
Even the coolest girls with the coolest shoes at some point come to consider parts of their past selves a little ridiculous, and become the ones who try to save their children from their fashion arrogance. Masu. This hubris is definitely more serious for Millennials. Because this arrogance is most evident in the arena they once dominated: the internet. On TikTok, the world’s hottest trending machine, the over-30 crowd is more bystanders than participants, and young people are using the platform to convince people to go to a party at the Delt mansion in 2007. We encourage each other to dress appropriately. someone has to warn them.
If you identify yourself with this person, my advice is to try not to take the generational responsibilities of aging too seriously. The benefit of losing your place on the cultural stage is freedom, after all. You can browse through what’s trending, choose what suits you, and write off the rest as the folly of youth. (Zoomer is right. These are the lug-soled combat boots I wore in high school. teeth It’s very cool. ) Instead of following trends, you can develop a sense of taste. When you fail with your sense of taste, you can at least realize that you are questioning your own decisions. In the process of writing this article, I learned that French Sole still makes the exact same prim little flats that I must have bought him 3 or 4 times in the course of my first job out of college in the late 2000s. I noticed that They’re as flimsy as ever, but what made me love them 15 years ago is still there, buried beneath my better judgment. You haven’t closed the tab yet.
