‘Naked dresses’ may be out, but flat shoes — according to the official Cannes Film Festival dress code — are in. It’s a sartorial judgement that may feel well overdue, after a group of women made headlines in 2015 for being reportedly refused entry to a screening for their ground-height footwear.
While the festival has never officially stated such a rule, according to event organizer Thierry Fremaux, who in 2015 asserted on X that a heels-only mandate did not exist, the perceived preference for high heels led to a backlash known as #flatgate, criticizing the perceived pressure on women. It set in motion a series of mini red-carpet protests and conversations around the inherent misogyny embedded in gendered dress codes.
In 2016, Julia Roberts walked the Cannes red carpet barefoot in the ultimate act of defiance. Two years later, Kirsten Stewart tiptoed around the rule by arriving in stilettos and pointedly removing them when arriving at the photographer’s pit. In 2023, Jennifer Lawrence inadvertently reignited the conversation when she lifted up her Dior haute couture ball gown to descend the Croisette, revealing a surprisingly pedestrian-looking pair of black flip flops (she maintains the decision wasn’t deliberately disobedient, and that the shoes she had originally intended to wear were one size too big).
For the last few years, however, the festival has expressed written permission for guests to wear shoes and sandals “with or without a heel” — stipulating only that they were “elegant.” Slowly but surely, more celebrities are taking the bait. In 2024, Jane Fonda attended the festival wearing a pair of silver Margaux Mary Janes while Margaret Qualley opted for a pair of Chanel sequined ballet flats. This year, film directors Alice Rohrwacher and Molly Manning Walker wore Prada loafers onto the Croisette, while actor Llúcia Garcia arrived in black leather lace-up ballet flats.
The flat shoe revival
For the most part, flat shoes have long been considered the domain of the elderly, the clumsy or the unfashionable. In Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” Margot Robbie must choose (red pill, blue pill style) between a stiletto and a Birkenstock. When her arches collapse and her heels touch the floor, Barbie is treated with as much trepidation as a contagious biohazard by the other dolls. “Flat feet!” gasps Hari Nef in her role as Doctor Barbie.
After Carrie Bradshaw’s hip surgery in season two of “Sex and the City” reboot “And Just Like That…” her main concern was being unable to slip into a teetering pair of Manolo Blahniks — revealing that she hadn’t bought a pair of flats in over a decade. (The television series and sequel aired on HBO and Max, respectively, which share the same parent company as CNN: Warner Bros. Discovery.)
Previously, any sightings of low-profile footwear at Cannes have been few and far between: Uma Therman in 2011, Karlie Kloss in 2014, Susan Sarandon in 2016. “It’s a misconception that to look dressy one needs huge heels,” French fashion designer and model Inès de la Fressange — who has regularly flouted Cannes’ unofficial flat ban — told Vogue in 2015. “Were Greek ancient statues wearing heels with their togas? Did Cleopatra wear platforms?”
Now, a decade on from #flatgate, the much-maligned footwear is finally welcomed onto one of the most historic and glamorous red carpets in the world. But can they rise to the occasion?
There is indication that they already have. According to Pinterest Trends, searches for “ballet flats” in the US were up around 190% this month compared to data collected in May 2023. (Growth in searches for high heels across the same time period was 53%.) Meanwhile, almost twice as many people worldwide were searching for “Mary Janes” this year than in 2023, according to Google Trends data.
At New York Fashion Week in September 2024, fashion label Tory Burch resurrected the Reva — a round-toe ballet flat that comes in soft or patent leather, stamped with the label’s circular medallion — that had been out of production since 2017. The glitzy pump was launched in 2006 and sold five million pairs in just seven years, before appetite for slim, dainty shoes dropped off in the mid-to-late 2010s. The death knell was the advent of the “Dadcore” chunky trainers movement (think Balenciaga Triple S sneakers or the Fila Disruptors — both of which were released the same year the Reva was put to rest).
Now, it appears, ballet flats rule the roost once more. Sandy Liang’s rehearsal-ready satin Pointe toe shoe ($550) was the cult item that put the designer on the map, with the first batch launched in 2022 selling out in just two days. Alaïa’s crystal Mary Jane flats — a rhinestone studded black leather pump with a matching over-the-foot strap that retails for $1,350 — was first introduced in 2022, yet the embellished style still came fourth in Lyst’s ranking of the hottest fashion products last year.
Perhaps coincidentally, Miu Miu (one of the few luxury brands defying a global downturn) boasts a remarkably varied and long-standing flat-shoe offering — with 14 styles on their site currently priced from $875 to $1,790. “I think people want alternatives, and shoes they can walk in,” observed Mosha Lundström Halbert, a fashion journalist and social media commentator under the handle @newsfash.
For Lundström Halbert, the comeback of the flat shoe is partly down to a new generation of shoppers coming of age in a more flexible corporate environment. “When I first started out as a fashion editor in 2008, you wore heels to work,” she said over the phone. “Even when I was an intern, I was in a Givenchy by Ricardo Tisci stiletto, because that’s what (actor turned designer) Ashley Olsen wore.”
Office dress codes have also evolved as a result of hybrid working styles. “It’s more socially acceptable to wear something that previously would have been viewed as quite casual,” Lundström Halbert said. “It’s probably easier for a lot of consumers to justify spending on a flat that they know they’re going to wear all summer long, than it is a pair of stilettos that are really only for select occasions,” she added.
As high heels become less of a requisite in certain arenas, the Cannes red carpet — whose ostentation is rivaled only by the Met Gala or the Oscars — is something of a final frontier.
“I think we’re re-examining a lot of tropes right now in society when it comes to how women are meant to present,” said Lundström Halbert. “We’re moving towards integrating the way people dress in real life on the red carpet for (those outfits) to resonate and stand out.” Plus, as Lundström Halbert noted, “there’s something (about a flat shoe) that breaks free from the pageantry of it all. It’s refreshing.”
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