Will Chanel’s viral sandals kick off the “shoes-without-shoes” trend? They're weird, we know, but at least they'll get people talking

We could try to explain it in a thousand different ways, but the barefoot trend that has taken (pun intended) hold in recent fashion seasons doesn’t seem ready to go anywhere. In a world of mainstreamed fetishes, adult “models” delivering covert fanservice on social media, and even recent summer campaigns and lookbooks where going shoeless is a sign of noble insouciance, certain extremities of the body seem more exhibited than actually shod, unlike in the past. But yesterday, with the Chanel Cruise 2027 show in Biarritz, we entered new territory: that of shoes-without-shoes.

Chanel’s Cap-Heel Sandal

As mentioned, yesterday’s Chanel show sparked a lot of discussion around a sandal we could define as Cap-Heel: a simple heel covering in the shape of a small block, tied around the ankle with a knotted string. Perhaps the best example of a shoe-that-is-not-a-shoe we have seen in years. As some have already pointed out, the commercial version of this non-sandal will likely include a sole, because it is impossible to imagine wearing it exactly as shown outside the house.

The design, clearly more oriented toward sparking social media conversation, is conceptually curious for two reasons. The first is that, in its bizarreness, it still respects Chanel’s “code” of two-tone shoes, even though in this case the second colour is the wearer’s own skin. The second is a somewhat historical factor: throughout the centuries, from antiquity to the modern age, nobles and aristocrats wore impractical clothing to indirectly demonstrate that they were not engaged in manual labour. Perhaps buying and wearing the runway version of this shoe will signal the same thing — that one can afford a life in which the wearer never has to touch a sidewalk or public floor, not even for a second.

Other Shoes-Without-Shoes in Fashion

This type of deconstructed shoe can be considered the latest descendant of a family tree whose roots go back to the archive of Martin Margiela — the very same archive that Matthieu Blazy worked on during the 2010s. One of the most legendary designs by the brilliant Belgian deconstructor is the “Le Topless” Tabi sandal presented in the brand’s SS96 collection: it consisted of a simple sole with a heel that was fixed to the foot using literal adhesive tape. The idea, beyond mere deconstruction, was to allow a different and casual styling of the shoe every time it was worn. Margiela has always explored, in one way or another, a certain philosophical sense of impermanence.

Around the same period, it is worth mentioning the shoes that Alexander McQueen created for the legendary SS97 show La Poupée. The models wore completely transparent platform shoes that left the entire foot visible and, when walking on the water-covered runway, gave the impression that they were almost floating on the surface. But perhaps the true ancestor of all these shoes is the Invisible Sandal (that’s its actual name) created by Salvatore Ferragamo in 1947, inspired by fishermen on the Arno river. The upper of this heel was made of a transparent nylon thread that bound the bare foot to the heel — a more couture version of what Margiela later did with adhesive tape.

In the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe made the Cinderella Slippers famous: they were made of a transparent material called lucite and consisted of a simple one-piece transparent sole with holes through which ribbons passed, then tied around the foot. This paved the way for PVC shoes in the 1960s which, by the 1990s, became associated with strippers and drag queens due to their success in the clubbing subculture. But that’s another story.

Shoes-Without-Shoes Today

Over the years, shoes-without-shoes and the illusion of bare feet have largely moved through the use of PVC: from the famous Pump Plexi by Gianvito Rossi, a bestseller for over a decade, to the thong wedges created by Kanye West for Yeezy Season 2 and then replicated in several subsequent collections. In 2017 it was Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel who made a series of transparent PVC go-go boots that recreated the naked effect. A tradition continued in recent collections by Loewe with its transparent Emily shoes. The following year came the most unsettling shoes-without-shoes of all: the Skin Heels by Matières Fécales, which used transparent platforms and a material identical to human skin to create the illusion of a mutant foot, with a “flesh” heel not unlike the ones welded to Angelina Jolie’s feet in the film Beowulf.

Transparent shoes as such had a moment in the SS23 season thanks to Jonathan Anderson at Loewe, who created ballerinas that looked like glass, and to Simone Rocha, who greatly expanded the world of transparent shoes up to her latest SS26 show. But the real shoe-without-shoe that comes closest to Margiela’s experiments and to yesterday’s Chanel sandal is the Barefoot Zero that Demna created for Balenciaga Pre-Fall 2025: it consisted of a simple sole that wrapped around the big toe, leaving the foot completely exposed. More recently, for the SS26 collection, Coperni collaborated with Barreletics on the Grip Sock — a sort of rubber sheath used in pilates, transformed here into a curious bio-mechanical version of a sandal.

Another similar shoe was seen, in a much more traditional key, in the SS26 Calvin Klein Collection: a leather sole tied to the ankle with a tiny strap, leaving the foot completely exposed and held on the sole by a metal thong element with no other attachment. Other brands that recreated the impression of a bare foot in the FW26 season were Maison Margiela, which brought a pair to its Shanghai show, along with independent brands such as Elena Velez, Karoline Vitto, and Julien McDonald.