Barefoot Trend or Shoe Mishaps? At New York Fashion Week, It's a Bit of Both

To the untrained eye, it may have looked like an anti-shoe trend was brewing at New York Fashion Week. Multiple designers seemingly sent models down the runway with their dogs out: At Jane Wade, a handful of shoe-free looks emphasized the outdoorsy Spring 2027 collection, while 6397’s debut catwalk featured one model baring sand (?) -covered toes and LoveShackFancy welcomed barefoot dancers to underscore the ’90s hippie aesthetic of its salon-style presentation.

On the heels of Matthieu Blazy’s viral “barefoot sandals” for Chanel — introduced at the label’s Cruise 2027 show and later co-signed by Margaret Qualley — perhaps NYFW’s foot-forward looks took the shoeless trend a step further. But most of this season’s foot-baring styling choices weren’t actually choices at all.

At 7 For All Mankind’s show, models strutted down the catwalk in Y2K-era platform pumps (the kind that make your ankles hurt just from looking at them), but when it came time for the final walk, one brave soul (sole?) returned to the runway sans the towering heels. (Good for her!)

Over at Tory Burch, the designer told Fashionista’s Editor-in-Chief Dhani Mau that the show’s one barefoot model wasn’t a stylistic choice, but rather, she simply hadn’t been given her shoes in time. “My team was upset,” Burch said. “I’m like, ‘Barefoot’s the new black!’ You just can’t worry about it.”

Burch’s incident was an honest mistake that likely looked intentional to the casual viewer, and makes us wonder if any of the other aforementioned designers encountered a similar shoe predicament and just chose to put a spin on it. Because whether fashion brands are intentionally opting for barefoot runway moments or not, there’s an ongoing problem that can’t be denied: Too many designers are selecting footwear that puts models in precarious situations, potentially rendering them as fall risks. Across Fashionista’s Spring 2027 reporting, multiple editors witnessed stumbles (or full-on falls) that resulted from difficult footwear.

For the final look in Henry Zankov’s debut collection for Diane von Furstenberg, the model — who was wearing platform heels — fell to the ground after her billowing train swept up under her (though, in her defense, The High Line’s wind made her voluminous gown particularly unruly). Multiple footwear mishaps clouded Area’s runway: One model stumbled, one held her kitten heels at her side to finish her walk and another kicked off her pesky heels mid-finale. Attendees said it was clear the shoes were “falling apart.” Meanwhile, a carpeted runway made a Retrofête model wobble, and Luar‘s cobblestone-like catwalk at the Queens Museum was grounds for potential twisted ankles.

Sure, uncomfortable footwear can be written off as an expected job hazard for models, but ensuring a safe work environment should be a top priority for designers. The barefoot “trend” we saw across this season’s runways was not technically a trend at all. Most instances were unintentional happenstances where models were faced with two options: Kick off the shoes or risk faceplanting.