For more than 70 years on the Promenade de la Croisette at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, icons of fashion and film have graced the red carpet wearing spectacular gowns and accessories, including the late Princess Diana, Elizabeth Taylor and Brigitte Bardot.
It’s a spectacle on par with the Oscars and the Met Gala for extravagance, elegance and style, and there has always been a strict red-carpet rule concerning one’s choice of footwear.
No flat shoes. No pumps. No thongs. No bare feet.
It reached a climax in 2015, when several big-name stars were turned away from pro-LGBT romance Carol, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, for wearing “rhinestone flats”, even though some attendees had medical conditions.
Cannes organisers reiterated the shoe du jour was the high heel.
Two years later, Twilight and Spencer star Kristen Stewart famously kicked off her sky-high Christian Louboutin stilettos and walked barefoot on the carpet in 2017.
“I feel like you can’t ask people that any more,” Stewart said at the time, adding, “If you’re not asking guys to wear heels and a dress, you cannot ask me either.”
End of the shoe rule
Fast forward to 2023 where Vogue reported “the shoe rule is no longer in effect – it quietly dissolved sometime after 2018” and, right on cue, Hollywood A-lister Jennifer Lawrence was photographed wearing thongs (aka flip-flops) with her lipstick red Dior gown for the French thriller, Anatomy Of A Fall.
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Renowned French actor and style icon Isabelle Huppert also made shoe headlines, wearing nude anatomic heels – “non-shoe shoes” – in a “pantabodysuit” with her black lace Balenciaga gown.
“The polarising shoe style is meant to resemble the anatomy of a naked human foot … her choice of non-shoe shoes could be seen as a way to poke fun at the former requirement,” wrote Vogue.
“She chose the most forward-thinking, not to mention divisive, version of a heel that she could possibly find.”
Feathers, leather and a heavy concentration of black and red gowns stunned crowds as another four days of red carpets and premieres continue, with the festival closing with Pixar Animated Studios’ Elemental on May 27.
Key films
All up, there are 21 films in competition, with the top prizes, the Palme D’or and jury prizes, set to be announced.
The 1950s US science fiction romantic comedy Asteroid City, the seedy teen cult thriller, Club Zero, a Henry VIII biopic Firebrand and Japanese film Monster, about a teacher and her son, are among the big-name films that have premiered over the past 10 days.
Among the last to make a splash is La Passion de Dodin Bouffant, starring French actor Juliette Binoche, and tells the 19th-century story of Eugenie, an esteemed cook, and Dodin, the fine gourmet she has been working for over the past 20 years.
Just as important as the films in the spotlight are the stars of every movie in the jam-packed schedule.
Here’s some of Cannes’ biggest fashion moments.
