These shoes look chic and feel like sneakers. Good luck finding a pair.

Alaïa’s rubber-soled ‘ballerine’ has earned fans for its counterintuitive combination of glitz and comfort: ‘It’s always sold out’

A guest at fashion week wears Alaia shoes. Picture: Getty Images

Kate Foley Osterweis, a Los Angeles stylist, wasn’t much of a flats person before she discovered Alaia’s crystal-studded, rubber-soled Mary Janes. Now she’s obsessed. “I wear mine nearly every day,” said Foley Osterweis, who owns several pairs. “I wear them driving, I wear them with jeans, I wear them to dinner, I wear them going out.”

Foley Osterweis is just one of legion fans who have begun collecting the French luxury brand’s $US1250 ($1934) “ballerine” shoes with a hoarder mentality, price be damned. For its many converts, the style is a revelation: inventive and dressy, but with the soul and the sole of a sneaker.

“They make everyone happy,” said Los Angeles creative director and early adopter Jen Brill, who described the shoes as flattering and “weirdly” comfortable. “Strangers on the street compliment me on my shoes.”

Since the initial success of the shoe, which debuted in 2022, Alaia has churned out several new variations on the style, all at slightly different price points. In addition to the first-wave black-and-white crystal, there’s also black mesh, gold mesh, red mesh, grommets, black mesh with a gold bar, laser-cut lacy leather, mesh booties and crystal booties.

With such a smash, fast-fashion dupes are inevitable. Cheap crystal-encrusted Mary Janes can be found pretty much everywhere these days, including (but not limited to) Zara, Maje, Sam Edelman, Jeffrey Campbell and Steve Madden. Amazon carries a plethora of made-in-China options. But many women prefer to invest in the real thing.

A fashion week guest wears the fishnet mesh version of the Alaia shoes. Picture: Getty Images

“It’s always sold out,” said Heather Kaminetsky, Munich retailer Mytheresa’s North American president. “The only way people get it is when there’s a wait list and someone returns one. But honestly, it very rarely happens.”

Kaminetsky, who pulled the trigger on her own black crystal pair after an excruciating evening in uncomfortable high heels, is on a wait list for another shade.

Marci Hirshleifer-Penn, a global personal shopping director and women’s buyer at her family’s Long Island department store, Hirshleifers, told a similar tale: “We sell out of them the moment they arrive. We have people reaching out every day asking what we have in stock.”

The shoe, specifically in black mesh, was the most requested and sold item in 2023 for LA-based Australian personal shopper Gab Waller, who specialises in sourcing hard-to-find items. She’s tracked down hundreds of pairs for private clients, including Sofia Richie Grainge. Although stars such as Richie Grainge and Rihanna have worn it, its success has been mostly fuelled by industry insiders such as buyers and stylists. Parisian stylist Virginie Benarroch, who owns four of them, recently put a red crystal pair on model Mica Argañaraz in Le Monde’s fashion magazine. She calls them new classics.

Megahits like these are rare in today’s cooling luxury climate. “It fell out of the sky,” said Rinske van den Nouwland, co-owner of luxury shoe boutique Paul Warmer in Amsterdam. She was shocked when the shoe sold out in two weeks at her store in 2023. “There are not so many hits at the moment in fashion,” she said, struggling to name an equally successful designer shoe.

The shoe is something of a surprise success for its designer, Pieter Mulier, who took over creative direction of Richemont-owned Alaia in 2021. Founded in 1964 by Azzedine Alaia, the brand has long been a cult favourite of fans who collect its refined stretchy “skater” dresses and bodysuits.

Alaia’s accessory business was a bit dusty by the time Mulier showed up. It was mainly built around laser-cut perforated leather totes and corset-like belts (an early 2000s favourite of then French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld). While Mulier has mainly focused on his novel ready-to-wear designs – the perfect pea coat, couture-like pleated pieces – his accessories have become the brand’s sleeper objects of desire. Before “la ballerine” came “le coeur”, a heart-shaped bag carried by the likes of Chloe Sevigny. Another recent success is the Teckel bag, a skinny over-the-shoulder purse.

The discreet brand said in a statement it is “happy the Ballerina is a success and has become an iconic model of the Maison”. Alaia commemorated the shoe with a billboard in Manhattan’s SoHo district this year.

With high heels teetering away into oblivion, a covetable flat shoe can really make a brand. Our pandemic-stoked craze for comfort meant success for clodhoppers such as Uggs, Crocs and Birkenstocks – but fashion fans craved something more elevated.

The wearability is a selling point: “I walk miles in them,” said Kim Brown, a Baltimore lawyer who saw them at the newly revamped Alaia store in SoHo. “They are absolutely worth it.”

As to the future of the Mary Jane, van den Nouwland said it would become a signature style. She compared it to the Saint Laurent Tribute, a sandal that is an enduring top-seller for the brand. Ten years ago, Paul Warmer had several shades of Tributes in different heights; today, it carries only black.

“In the end, the hype will end – but the shoe will stand,” van den Nouwland predicts.

The Wall Street Journal