It used to be that the worst thing a shoe designer could do was show some toe. Controversial shoe trends were labeled as such online because they revealed more foot than they concealed—and divided the comments sections on Reddit, Instagram, and X (then known as Twitter) in the process. The earliest mesh flats had armchair critics begging shoppers to put their toes away, especially if they lived in a city. Only a narrow in-group embraced Maison Margiela's cleft-toed Tabi line when John Galliano brought it from its roots in Japan to the Western masses in 1988; the rest considered them a little too hoof-like to adopt en masse. And jelly sandals? The court of popular opinion ruled they belonged back in the 1990s.
But by mid-2024, nearly all of street style seemed united in supporting once-polarizing shoes. And Hollywood shoe-connoisseurs led the charge.
First came the mesh flat trend, surging to the top of Lyst's Hottest Items Indexes for several quarters in 2023 with help from Alaïa and The Row. Their versions most often ended up on the feet of Hollywood's elite—Zendaya, Jennifer Lawrence, and Anne Hathaway were a few of their biggest fans—and down-market options soon followed in those designers' footsteps once the initial shock wore off.
Then came 2024's jelly sandal trend, reinvented by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen's The Row in the form of a latticed, $890 flat and once again embraced almost immediately by Jennifer Lawrence—and then all the Substack cognoscenti. The Row's version sold out with versions from Coach, Melissa, and Loeffler Randall hot on their heels.
Mesh flats and jelly sandals traded on early-aughts nostalgia with modern, elevated upgrades. Versions that were popular way-back-when had floral embellishments or glitter mixed into their PVC plastic. 2024's renditions got a little more serious with solid colors and streamlined, foot-hugging shapes. They were also, as reviewers who'd been convinced to show their toes noted, quite breathable during the height of summer while feeling more formal than a flip-flop. By August, mesh flats and jelly sandals didn't read like controversial trends; they were just a trend, period.
When the Spring 2025 runways came around in September, designers decided the time was right to push their foot-first agenda even further. Enter: the runway's naked shoe trend. Stars like Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian had already treated clear, PVC-based footwear as a window to their pedicures. (In Lopez's case, pairing naked shoes to loud leopard coats or her collection of rare Birkin bags.) Brandon Maxwell, Tibi, and Alaïa were among the labels who agreed clear shoes had a runway beyond the A-list.
In the front row at fashion week, no one shuddered at the sight of a sock revealed in a clear boot or a pedicure on display under a transparent mule. The response was more, "I'll wear what she's wearing!"
Normalizing previously controversial shoe trends didn't stop with naked styles. The formerly divisive, cleft-toed Tabi looked less so with every 2024 sighting, from Zendaya's Tabi boots on a Nordstrom run to Lily-Rose Depp's Tabi flats and pumps traipsing about Los Angeles. Daisy Edgar-Jones bared some toe cleavage in a pair of nude pumps with a slit revealing a sliver of her burgundy pedicure earlier this month; Tory Burch's entire Spring 2025 New York Fashion Week front row endorsed ballerinas with a pierced toe box.
What happened in shoe trends this year happened in ready-to-wear and handbags before: With time, exposure, and a few well-placed celebrity endorsements, previously polarizing footwear started to look a lot more, well, normal. Seeing a few toes wasn't all that scary when they were, technically, encased in fabric—even if it was see-through. In fact, some editors found the look sexier than the underwear-as-pants trend or an actual naked dress.
But for the sake of shoe designers—and hygiene—let's not agree to go completely barefoot by 2025.
