Harper’s Bazaar executive digital director Lynette Nylander was visiting her Upper East Side gynecologist’s office earlier this summer when her doctor noticed something sparkly. “Oh my God, those shoes!” Nylander was wearing a pair of black Alaïa lambskin ballerinas covered with silver rhinestones. You’d probably recognize the shoes, too. Over the last year, they’ve been a constant presence in Instagram influencers’ outfits of the day, Substack recommendation lists, and TikTok unboxings. They are usually all but sold out at the major retailers that carry them. Knockoffs are everywhere, from Amazon to Mango to even the shoe salon at Bergdorf Goodman. “They’re consistently selling out; it’s blowing my mind,” says Gab Waller, a go-to personal shopper for hard-to-find designer items.
Shoppers turn to Waller when inventory of an “It” bag or shoe is running low on Net-a-Porter or Bergdorf Goodman, and she tracks them down. If an item is really popular, she might sell 50 in a year. But last year, she sold more than 200 pairs of Alaïa flats. Waller expected the interest to fall off fast coming into 2024, but it hasn’t, thanks to Alaïa’s steady stream of new ballet-flat variations. The brand’s most popular styles are the black-and-silver studded version, like Nylander’s, according to Waller, and another covered in a wide-gauge black fishnet mesh. But new styles that evolve the look with the same quirky but cool sensibility keep coming — and spiking interest. “Most recently, they did a raffia style that sold out. There’s a beaded style that sold out. So I feel very confident in saying it’s not slowing down,” Waller says.
Alaïa, which is hosting a fashion show in New York on Friday, is an unlikely brand to generate all this hype. Thirty years since Cher Horowitz tried to explain to a thief that Azzedine Alaïa was “like, a totally important designer,” the brand he left behind after his death in 2017 still isn’t exactly a household name. Nor is it a multibillion-dollar business like many of its luxury competitors. It took Richemont, the conglomerate that owns his brand, three years after Alaïa’s death to hire his successor, Pieter Mulier, whose runway collections and red-carpet designs have won over fashion critics and stylists.
But for many shoppers, it’s Mulier’s popular accessories that have defined Alaïa’s newest chapter — especially the flats, which manage to be both distinctive and logo-free. They’re the “if you know, you know” shoe for the fashion set and passionate luxury shoppers who love to stand out. (And obviously, the shoes don’t come cheap, ranging in price from $800 to $1,300.)
The Cut’s fashion director Jessica Willis snagged a pair of the black fishnet ballerinas early, in the summer of 2023, through the Alaïa team in Paris after first spotting them at a collection months earlier. “I had never seen a flat like that before,” she says. “What I like about them is they are not so precious — I don’t feel like I’m in a dainty sandal.”
Around the same time, Nylander bought her sparkly pair at the Alaïa store in London, where Jen Brill and Mel Ottenberg egged her on. A year later, she got a second pair with a wide, crisscrossed buckle in silver. (Willis bought them for her on a trip to Paris, actually.) “I like the juxtaposition of wearing them with jeans and T-shirts,” says Nylander. That’s exactly how Jennifer Lawrence wore the mesh version last year, not long before Rihanna was photographed wearing the rhinestone ones with leggings and sweatpants, cementing their status as an “It” shoe. “There’s so many ways you can wear them,” says Willis.
The popularity of the Alaïa flat and all its variants calls to mind the Balenciaga Triple S sneakers, which debuted in 2017. That chunky and delightfully ugly style was so popular and hard to find in stock that it helped establish a new category of luxury accessories: the designer sneaker. In recent years, however, the sneaker fever has broken. But instead of going back to heels, women are shopping for more sensible and comfortable styles like mary janes, kitten heels, and low-heeled slingback pumps. And ballet flats. Particularly weird ballet flats.
On today’s most coveted ballerinas, the “neckline” of the shoe isn’t rounded but pointed and often comes up higher on the foot than, for example, the original famous Tory Burch Reva flat. Today, the style’s material is also more unexpected than simple leather. Last year, Khaite released a clear mesh style, and this year, The Row’s debuted a netted jelly flat style in bright colors. (The Row’s jellies were in high demand this summer, says Waller, but their popularity has already fallen off.) Stroll through Bergdorf Goodman’s shoe salon today, as I did over Labor Day weekend, and you’ll find a wide range of funky designer ballet flats with grommets, square toes, and perforations. And more than a few that look a lot like Alaïa’s rhinestone style.
Maya Silver, a fitness trainer in Greenpoint who loves ballet flats and mary janes, bought her studded Alaïas this past May after first buying an Amazon dupe that fell apart in less than a month. Annoyed, she decided to splurge on the real thing and has no regrets. She says strangers ask her about them every time she wears them. “The girls love the studs,” Silver says. (She doesn’t love the fishnet style. “Something about the mesh makes me feel like my toes are in jail.”) Silver knows her shoes are trendy and copied everywhere, but she sees people wearing them online more than in real life. Plus, they make her happy. “Something about the stud is still kind of neutral in my mind — it’s not like a heel; you can kind of wear it with everything.”
But can you wear studded ballet flats forever? Fashion editor and Substack writer Laurel Pantin bought her sparkly studded pair back in early 2023 when she was working at the Austin-based boutique ByGeorge and wore them frequently over the next year. “What makes them so good is they are comfortable and practical, and really fun and silly, and immediately recognizable as ‘designer’ without having a logo,” she says. “So it really hits all the sweet spots for that type of customer, which I definitely am.” But last winter, Pantin sold her pair. They had become too much of “a thing,” she explains, though she predicts she might regret letting them go in about three years. (She kept the brand’s popular heart-shaped bag, however, which she had bought around the same time.)
Pantin thinks Alaïa’s more understated crisscross flats will have more longevity and says she’s tempted to buy another pair. Similarly, Nylander says she probably wouldn’t have bought her Alaïas this summer, given their popularity, because she usually avoids such overt trends. But she plans to wear them frequently this fall. “This is the rare kind of bucking of that for me,” she says, adding that she doesn’t mind because they’re Alaïa. “It’s a brand I’ve always loved and respected.”
Willis also wants to get another iteration of the shoe next time she’s in Paris, but she predicts the fishnet style she already owns will become a classic. Then she hits me with an even wilder prediction. Nostalgic ballet flats have been trending, but they’re about to get some competition. “Wedges — I feel it coming,” she says. I fear she might be right.
