Floss Heels Are the Naked Shoe of 2019

Floss heels is a term I coined to describe heeled sandals with straps so thin and minimal they’re reminiscent of—you guessed it—floss. It may or may not have started with #oldceline’s famous “Nude” sandals, a pair of tomato red cage-like heels from the brand's 2018 resort collection with straps so shockingly skinny you could barely see them on one’s foot at times. While the trophy shoe is still in many a wardrobe rotation today, next in line to take the fashion and street style worlds by storm at the last fashion month was The Row’s Bare sandals.

From Copenhagen to Paris (and every city in between), it seemed like there wasn’t an It girl who didn’t sport the style. And if that’s not enough, a little birdie at Net-a-Porter told us that they’re expecting it to be among the site’s most popular shoes for this spring as well. Nonetheless, I digress. After The Row’s takeover, next to steal the spotlight was a refreshingly affordable pair of heels from Zara that won the hearts of editors, Instagram girls, and moms alike this fall and winter.

After all that, you may be wondering if we've reached peak floss heel. I say absolutely not. In fact, while the style has been on an upward trajectory for over a year at this point, it’s only recently made its way to the masses and continues to appear in more and more brands’ offerings by the day. This (and the fact that as you scroll through many e-commerce websites' sandal offerings, floss heels are among the newest while PVC styles are largely on sale) is what leads me to believe that the floss heel is set to eclipse last year’s omnipresent naked shoe as the biggest footwear trend of 2019. 

Thanks to the shoe style's equally flattering and semi-naked appeal, fashion girls are jumping ship left and right to hop on board with the new trend, and so can you. Just keep scrolling to see how floss heels made their mark in the spring 2019 collections, check out their Instagram presence, and shop my favorite versions out now.

In the spring 2019 collections:

On Instagram:

Shop floss heels:

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