When is a shoe not a shoe? This month, a pair from cult brand Dear Frances poses the question with what can only be described as a foot-cage masquerading as footwear. The Balla 'sock shoe' covers almost the entire foot while leaving it on display - like a flimsy prison for your toes. Creative director Jane Frances says it 'offers a unique, glove-like fit wearability' and 'takes inspiration from the delicate strength of a woman.' Which is one way to describe a shoe that looks like it lost a fight with a cheese grater.
This is the latest chapter in the saga of 'barely there' shoes, a trend that traces back to 2022 when Alaia's £650 fishnet ballet flats set the world ablaze - spawning high-fashion iterations and high-street dupes faster than you can say 'toe cleavage.' According to Tiffany Hill of Trend Suite, those flats worked because they 'gave consumers something familiar... but made it feel more intimate, lighter and slightly exposed.' They hit that sweet spot: covered but not covered, practical but a little provocative.
But where Alaia's weave was fine enough to drain udon noodles, Dear Frances's sock-shoe and its predecessors have a weave that could keep vermicelli from going down the sink. They frame the foot like jewelry, says Hill, with the foot becoming 'part of the styling language.' At the recent Chanel show in Biarritz, barely-there footwear hit its absurd peak: heels tied to models' feet with nothing else in sight. Hill calls it 'extreme fashion expression' where 'the absence becomes the point.'
Of course, pulling off these shoes is a humblebrag predicated on having had a recent pedicure and/or naturally nice feet - which aligns neatly with the mainstreaming of foot fetishes and the lucrative online market for feet pics. Also, 'touching grass' is being championed as an antidote to digital life, so maybe naked shoes are just the logical next step.
But Sarah Crookes, director of Hackney Podiatry, warns: 'The upper of a shoe does a lot to support the foot... after a long period of wearing [naked shoes] the wearer may end up with foot strain.' The thin sole offers no shock absorption from concrete pavements, leaving feet tired and unsupported. Particularly for anyone with plantar fascia or Achilles tendon issues, she wouldn't recommend it. So go ahead, show off your metatarsals this summer - just don't expect to walk more than a block without regretting it.