.jpg)
It’s official, “hot guys are wearing ballet flats”. From Bad Bunny in a Dries Van Noten pair at the Happy Gilmore 2 premiere, to Harry Styles wearing pastel green Dior flats at the Grammys, or a black Chanel pair at the Brits, some of menswear’s most prominent style icons are sporting the style of late. But will the average menswear consumer buy in?
The ballet flat trend has been bubbling away for a few years, with cult labels like Comme des Garçons, Maison Margiela, Lemaire, and Bode releasing versions as early as 2021, beloved by fashion-forward arty types who’d pair them with shredded jeans or baggy shorts. But with an influx of celebrity sightings in recent months, the men’s ballet flat has crossed over into more mainstream culture.
.jpg)
“Harry Styles has certainly played a role in raising the profile of this once-fringe trend for men,” says Karis Munday, retail analyst at EDITED. “Less than two weeks after he appeared at the Brits in Chanel ballet flats, Celine’s own ballet-style lace-up sold out, despite having been in stock since November.” Munday also points to the impact on high street retailers, adding that ultra-thin soles currently feature in 8% of early-season men’s shoe arrivals at Zara.
Of course, the aforementioned luxury labels cater to a subset of consumers influenced by the runway and celebrity style, even if it challenges traditionally gendered colors or silhouettes. But a cursory glance at the Instagram comments under any coverage of men’s ballet flats will reveal — amid rising conservatism and a continued surge in hyper-masculinity — plenty of consumers going to great lengths to avoid traditionally feminine fashion. (One comment, under a @FootwearNews post of Styles in his green Dior shoes, reads: “masculinity is dead.”)
.jpg)
The data backs up the trend. Frida Tordhag, fashion analyst at Heuritech, points to the company’s research on “men’s pumps”, which are growing in popularity among the 16 to 25 demographic. “In Europe, this shoe model is favored, with 23% year-on-year growth in [social media] visibility over the past month,” she says. “Looking at our forecasted data, the shoe is estimated to grow 8% [in Europe], with peak months in June and September. In the US, it has seen growth of 11%, and is also a consistent riser, especially among trendsetters; it is forecasted to grow 4% over the next 12 months.”
Brands and retailers should focus ballet flat offerings on the fashion-forward customer, and adapt styles to boost adoption with a broader shopper, experts agree. “The more fashion-conscious customer will pick it up early, but for most men it’ll come through in a more diluted way,” says Benedict Browne, style director at Mr Porter. There are now various sneakers that build on the ultra-thin design of a ballet flat, repackaging its construction for performance reasons, for example. By combining elements of traditional masculine dressing with the traditionally feminine ballet flat, brands are participating in the trend without alienating shoppers.
Slim and thin footwear continues to reign
The recent surge in ballet flats reflects a broader shift in men’s footwear, as the hype-driven sneaker years fade into memory. “Moving from chunky sneakers to loafers was already a step toward something more polished,” Browne says. “From there, it makes sense that things would keep refining. The ballet shoe is quite an extreme version of that, but it points to where things are heading more broadly.” EDITED’s research supports this: men’s sneaker options are down year-on-year by 3 percentage points, while shoe styles are up by 7 points.
“Across footwear more broadly, men are moving toward slimmer, lower-profile shapes,” Browne continues. “There’s been a shift over the past few years toward dressing in a more considered, elegant way — and ballet flats tap into that. They’re light, pared-back, and quite refined.”
For Tordhag, the move toward loafers has helped create a menswear consumer who is primed to adopt ballet flats. “Because of that shift, I think ballet flats have real potential to resonate with men as well,” she says. “They tap into the same appeal: ease, versatility, and a certain understated elegance. In a way, they could become an evolution of the loafer, offering a slightly more daring yet still grounded sense of sophistication.”
Maybe the ballet flat is more of a direction of travel than a final destination. It might be relatively rare for men to fully embrace the silhouette as it is, but many of its characteristics — the low, almost-flat sole and thin leather upper — are being combined with more traditional forms. “While literal interpretations of the ballet flat remain minimal in the market,” says Munday, “their influence is beginning to take shape in the form of thin soles and soft leather uppers on shoes.” For Mr Porter, this is coming through in “hybrid styles that sit somewhere between a loafer and a slipper, with that same pared-back feel”, says Browne. At the start of the year, Jacob Elordi sat on the Jimmy Kimmel sofa to promote Wuthering Heights, wearing a pair of off-white Bottega Veneta loafers that were not quite ballet flats, but ascribed to this hybrid style (though many users compared them to ballet flats online).
Some brands are imbuing the ballet flat with sporty elements to boost appeal for the menswear customer. Simone Rocha’s Ballerina Grip has a sporty, tactical outsole and a soft, leather ballet shoe upper, while Adidas’s Y-3 has stripped back the Stan Smith with a flat sole and a soft construction. Elsewhere, Lemaire’s Piped Slippers offer a more structured take, and New York label Stòffa takes a similar approach with its leather slippers.
Instagram content
“The idea is about how close to barefoot walking can you feel, having the comfort to tread in a city environment that is more concrete than grass,” Stòffa co-founder Agyesh Madan says of the shoe, which is made from soft vegetable-tanned leather and a flat sole. “The association with a ballet shoe makes a lot of sense. Ballet shoes are essentially just foot coverings for your feet to be able to express the lines and forms of your body.” Nicholas Ragosta, Stòffa’s other co-founder, puts the embrace of flat silhouettes down to changing approaches to formalwear. “This is one way to take classic formal elements and make them feel a little bit softer,” he says.
.jpg)
While it’s easy to see ballet flats as an entirely new trend in menswear, the opera pump can be traced back to the 18th century. The delicate men’s silhouette has become a black tie staple in the rulebound world of formalwear, often coming in patent black leather with a bow at the front. “It’s a style that never really became diluted, black tie is one of the few areas where the rules still hold, and the opera pump sits quite firmly within that,” says Jack Ladow, head of communications at Swedish label Morjas, which indeed sells a classic opera pump. “As men get more comfortable with softer footwear, the opera pump feels less unfamiliar. It lowers the hesitation, making it a more obvious choice for formalwear while opening the door to experimenting in how and when to wear it.”
.jpg)
Ballet flats might not be worn by men en masse, but their influence is being felt across the menswear market. Both brands and consumers are embracing softer shoes, happy to play with the rules that have previously governed men’s footwear. “The exact shoe might stay niche,” says Browne. “But the ideas behind it will carry through.”
