The 2023 and 2024 runways featured the toe-baring trend adapted to more wearable styles, with luxury brands Alaia and The Row presenting see-through mesh flats in their summer collections. These put a more sophisticated spin on the clear plastic stilettos favoured by celebrities such as the Kardashians in the 2010s.
Nathan Capistrano, a fashion archivist based in Manila and the name behind Instagram account @muglerize, says that as “the basis and foundation of a look – figuratively and literally”, feet are ripe fodder for self-expression.
“The potential to do anything with them and showcase your uniqueness, eclecticism and personality through another part of your body … is appealing, thrilling, sexy and interesting,” Capistrano said.
Matea Gluscevic, a shoemaker based in Melbourne, has featured feet in several of her collections. She credits the rise of feet in fashion in part to the influence of the body positivity movement.
In her collection “Ocean Girl 3000”, Gluscevic created a pair of heeled shoes that exposed the wearer’s big toe.
“I imagined this girl in the year 3000 and what the world would look like … one of the thoughts was like, ‘Oh, she’s walking through these sand dunes, and she hasn’t ever felt sand because she’s been living in this city forever. So she wants to feel the sand a little bit between her toes’,” Gluscevic said.
“When I first made them, I looked down, and I was like, this almost looks rude.”
Indeed, feet have always felt a little naughty. Not only does traditional etiquette deem the baring of feet to be improper (consider how people are often shamed for going barefoot in public, or the fact that thongs are inappropriate office attire), but feet – and the shoes that adorn them – have long been seen as sexual objects.
High heels, of course, have long been associated with sex – the matter of whether they’re a source of imprisonment or empowerment is an ongoing feminist debate. And, in recent years, foot fetishes have become mainstream, with websites such as wikiFeet cataloguing the most “beautiful” celebrity feet. Some, like Lily Allen, have capitalised on this popularity by selling foot pics on OnlyFans.
“Feet are sexy,” Capistrano declared.
Shoemaker Matea Gluscevic’s designs include “Claw” shoes (left) and “Toes in the Sand” shoes.
“And by ‘sexy’ I don’t just mean erotic or sexually suggestive, but also exciting and interesting. Feet arouse intrigue.”
“It’s a new way to be provocative,” Graham agreed. “Fashion is always flirting with the subversive – for a while it was BDSM-inspired trends like PVC, leather, harnesses and zips. Now that’s been played out, so people want to feel the frisson in a new way. Breaking the toe taboo fits the brief.”
Shoes like the FiveFingers are never going to be popular with everyone, but Graham said their polarising effect was partly the point.
“Price-wise, they’re more accessible, but aesthetically they require a much bigger risk, which is part of the appeal,” she said.
Mesh is becoming popular in footwear (from left): Alaia summer-fall 2023, The Row summer 2024, Alaia’s mesh booties in the wild.
“It makes them exclusive and inclusive at the same time. Plus, you have that feeling of knowing there’s a whole community of people out there who are wearing them for completely different reasons, like outdoorsy types who buy them for their technical advantages. There’s this sense of a parallel universe existing alongside you as you wear them.”
But as with anything in fashion, what once might have been seen as weird or ugly, becomes absorbed into the norm.
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“I won’t be surprised if in five, 10 years from now, these FiveFingers and similar takes will all be hailed as major, ahead-of-its-time fashion moments,” Capistrano said.
“Taste evolves, and in the process, we become more open to the things we didn’t get before or were too close-minded to see.”
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