Balletcore's Rugged Evolution Starts With the Shoes
Only the rare fashion trend finds longterm footing. So it goes with balletcore, first gaining ground in 2022 and never really slowing through subsequent years. According to Google, searches occasionally dip but, just as often, they spike (and plié, and assemblé, and so on).
This is partially due to unceasing interest in the tentpole balletcore designers, the Sandy Liangs, Shushu/Tongs, and Cecilie Bahnsens of the world. This is also due to how neatly balletcore dovetails with other stylistic moments of cultural bubble-over, like 2023's girlhood fixation and the ongoing Y2K intrigue.
But the single most crucial factor in determining a trend's longevity is its capability for evolution. And balletcore is nothing if not mutable.
Balletcore in 2024 is not so far-removed from balletcore of years' past: the bows are intact, for one. The new wrinkle instead starts from the ground-up, subtly reshaping a balletcore staple.
Mary janes, they ain't going nowhere either. But they are suddenly utilitarian, hard-wearing and trail-ready.
Salomon, at the core of so many aesthetic flings, again leads the charge. Its 2023 collaboration with Sandy Liang was a blow-out, internet-shaking Balletcore Has Arrived moment — yes, Salomon's tech-meets-trek XT-6 sneaker actually is balletcore — and, this year, the pair remain ahead of the curve.
Their new slip-ons are more mary jane than ever before. Their new trek sneakers are trekkier, softened by ribbons.
It's two-for-one picture of the new balletcore, one that's still unashamedly feminine but a bit tougher, a bit more rugged.
Balletcore still retains a softness. It still retains sparkle. Look to Simone Rocha's shoes as the picture of balletcore balance.
The Irish designer's cutely ornate Crocs are the stuff of balletcore legend — though Crocs, especially heeled Crocs, already had extant balletcore vibes, Rocha created the first proper ballet-tinged clog with the most mass manufacturer of foam mules.
As such, makes sense that she'd also be leading the look into its next phase.
Alongside the heeled platform mules that Rocha and Crocs are dropping in April, the Irish designer is also rolling out a glitzed-up take on Crocs' hardy Quick Trail shoe, a grippy adventure sandal beautifully bejeweled by Rocha's beaded finery.
This is a more understated (and gossamer) line in the sand than Liang's ribbon-wrapped Salomon hiking boots but a clear callout to the next age of balletcore, one that's always ready to hit the road.
And Kiko Kostadinov and Heaven By Marc Jacobs' ASICS ballet flat sneakers may not be quite as function-driven as the aforementioned steppers, but they're clearly cut from a similar cloth: balletcore made more technical.
These collaborators are the locus from which balletcore bloomed and their partnerships with footwear giants first sounded the balletcore klaxons to a wider audience.
It's from these team-ups that the aesthetic's design language most widely and covetably spread (in particular, Liang's first Salomon collab was so hot that fans found it practically impossible to purchase).
But the brands at the core of it all are making move, too.
In 2024 alone, Salomon created its own single-strapped recovery shoes and Dr. Martens — whose clunky mary janes may make for a tough pirouette but otherwise epitomize the balletcore attitude — translated the delicacy of balletcore into a floral-imprinted sandal.
Maybe I'm stretching the definition of balletcore here but the aesthetic has always been complex. Like with most meaningful movements, balletcore is informed by the eye of the beholder, translatable into many manner of motifs.
At its core, though, balletcore boils down to accents that lean conventionally "feminine" — moreso in the stylistic codes at play than by reaffirmed gender norms — and, well, ballet clothes.
Pinkish stuff, intricate stuff, graceful stuff.
It's not as simple as "mary janes = balletcore," no.
But, as it's the shoe most closely related to the ballet flat, the many permutations of the mary jane are a worthy representative of balletcore's current inclinations.
And right now, balletcore is dreaming of the great outdoors.
