Chelsea boots are a classic for a reason: They never go out of style. Sure, designers might introduce a few unexpected twists each season—like, a chunky lug sole or, maybe, metallic leather—but year after year, the silhouette remains a quintessential footwear staple.
The essential style has a long history, in fact. Defined by their low heel, ankle height, and pull-on loops, Chelsea boots have been around since the Victorian era; The first pair was actually designed in 1837 by Queen Victoria’s shoemaker, Joseph Sparkes Hall, himself. It featured an elasticized inset and a comfy flat sole. According to Halls, the Queen loved them so much, she walked “in them daily.”
The mod, mod history of Chelsea boots
By the 1960s, other influential Brits had become champions of the style. Nowhere was this more apparent than in London’s hip Chelsea neighborhood, where everyone from The Beatles to The Rolling Stones to Jean Shrimpton wore them with mod skinny pants and floppy hair.
These newfangled Chelsea boots—which featured a low, Cuban-inspired heel and a sleek, almond-shaped toe—were custom-created by dance shoemakers Anello & Davide at the request of The Beatles; Eventually they would become known as Beatle boots. They were considered incredibly directional at the time: In 1980, Andy Warhol recalled being impressed when he saw David Bailey and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones wearing the boots at a dinner in London two decades earlier. “They each had a distinctive way of dressing… it was the way he put things together that was so great—this pair of shoes with that pair of pants that no one else would have thought to wear. And, of course, Bailey and Mick were both wearing boots by Anello & Davide, the dance shoemaker in London,” Warhol mused.
More recently, designers like Proenza Schouler, Prada, and Valentino sent their own distinctive iterations of Chelsea boots down the Fall 2024 runways. The unflinching popularity of the style—as Queen Victoria so rightly noted a century ago—comes down to their practicality. That, and the fact that they’re also wonderfully unisex; Both men and women can pull them off, as the aforementioned icons of the Swinging Sixties—and lately, Timothée Chalamet—have proved.