Fashion might be notorious for its fleeting taste, but Alaïa’s ballerine flat has been voted in for at least another trend season. While the shoe first debuted in May 2022 (ancient times if it was born within a TikTok aesthetic), the shoe's drop was memorable enough that owners of the ballet flat-meets-Mary Jane style can usually tell you, without missing a beat, when they bought their first pair (and the second) or how long they held out for them on a wait list when they were sold out in rapid succession. Some of those people (myself included) wouldn’t have pegged themselves as ballet flat wearers. But with Lyst reporting a 152 percent increase in the ballerine’s sales year-on-year, it seems like there’s been more than a few changes of heart.
A seemingly overnight success from creative director Pieter Mulier, who has been with the 1964-established French fashion house since 2021, the Alaïa ballet flat was neither a nostalgic relaunch from the archive nor a redux. The novel rubber-soled shoe was the first generation of its kind for the label, one that Mulier and his team modeled after a classic Japanese shoe. It was initially available in just one style—a white or black lambskin version with crystal studs, named the Strass—with a champagne taste price tag of $1,290.
