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Jennifer Lawrence is a woman who likes to feel every grain of grit and gravel beneath her soles. She first liberated her digits from the arcane rule of shoes while appearing on the Late Show With Stephen Colbert in 2018, when she peeled off her stilettos to rapturous applause. But—as the popular adage goes—it would seem Lawrence at some point learned not to “post feet pics for free.” And so: she started experimenting with Melissa’s gum-textured fisherman sandals and The Row’s paper-thin “non-shoes,” which provide the same sensation as going barefoot, but without the need for a tetanus jab.
That might explain why she decided to wear flip flops on the Cannes red carpet in 2023—a last-minute decision that kept fashion websites in headlines for at least three days—with a Dior Haute Couture ball gown. And it would also explain why Lawrence was photographed in a pair of The Row’s nude-illusion ballet flats while house-hunting in Los Angeles this weekend: its mesh upper functioning as a sort of pixelated—but not entirely concealed—blur.
Toes, I will continue to maintain, are the new legs. And the American tan-effect of Lawrence’s slippers invoked a number of styles popularized within the spring 2024 collections, where shoes began to take on the distinct appearance of pantyhose. See: Jil Sander’s and Dolce and Gabbana’s stretch-tulle boots or Wesley Harriott and Louis Vuitton’s one-toed knicker-stilettos. Even the models at Givenchy wore heels on the inside of their tights. Lawrence’s slip-ons were a little more practical, a little more garden centre than those designs, but they nonetheless rode on the same MO: treating feet as the most delicate—and perhaps acquired—fancies.
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