Get all your news in one place.

100's of premium titles.
One app.

Start reading

Get all your news in one place.

100's of premium titles. One news app.

Start reading

Evening Standard

Lifestyle

Divya Venkataraman

How flip-flops went high fashion (blame The Row)

The Row Tube Hailey Bieber GC Images Vittoria (Organization)

To flip flop has such negative connotations: to prevaricate, to hedge bets, to never fully commit to one thing or another. Ironically, the shoe of the season, which shares a name with the verb and not a disposition, is all about committing.

The flip-flop is about dedication: to baring the toes, to airing out the feet, to brave having as little as possible between oneself and the pavement, the Tube station, the sticky dancefloor. It’s the opposite of going back and forth — it’s all about going all in.

Hailey Bieber in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by DUTCH/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images) (GC Images)

In this decade, when a once passed-over style becomes a hot commodity, it’s often The Row which is to blame. The label’s slimline leather Ginza sandal has only a passing resemblance to its commonplace rubber cousin — it certainly wouldn’t last on the beach, and it’s priced at £1,100. It’s barely-there, and utterly elegant. It quickly became a hot favourite among celebrities and fashion folk alike, from Zoe Kravitz to Hailey Bieber to Kendall Jenner.

From then on, mid-range and high fashion brands alike raced to bare their own models’ feet, while the fast fashion churn rushed to put out replicas.

“A few years ago, flip-flops were almost forbidden in a Parisian wardrobe,” says Antoine Bolze, who would know — he’s the co-founder of Bobbies, the French footwear label with a half-million Instagram following. “Too beachy, too casual, not considered refined enough.”

It was when fashion houses began to approach the style with “a high level of craftsmanship,” that the perspective on the flip-flop started to shift, Bolze says. The style “moved beyond the purely vacation mindset and became part of a more considered, fashion-led silhouette.”

The most recent seasons have seen the flip-flop transcend those more minimal iterations and more into something more bold and statement-making. No longer do they come with the vivid sensory flashbacks of sweaty feet and sand in unexpected places, and no longer do they signal ‘dressing down’.

At Balenciaga this season, under the direction of Pierpaolo Piccioli, flip flops are fitted with platforms and covered in luxurious jewel velvets: ochre, magenta, cobalt. Gucci’s leather heeled styles are Tom Ford-era sleek. Japanese menswear brand Auralee showed that flip-flops work with summer tailoring, layered officewear, and everything in between. Wear yours with slinky separates for evening — a lacy cami and a puddle-legged trouser, perhaps — or slip them on with a filmy spring dress.

“As an Australian, flip-flops have always been a utilitarian style, worn year in and year out no matter the trend direction,” says Anna McLaren, founder and designer of Melbourne-born shoe label A Emery. Leather flip flops have been part of its collections since it launched in 2017. “[They] come with a sense of ease, and I think above all this is what women want from their lives right now. To feel put together and intentional but comfortable.”

And we mustn’t forget the men. Alexander Skarsgård underscored the flip-flop’s unisex appeal at the recent Sundance film festival held in snowy Park City, Utah — he wore a slim, black pair with a trench coat, in the snow. Now that’s commitment. Time to book a pedicure?

A Emery Kinto sandal, £140