Just as eyes are the window to the soul, shoes give you the clearest picture of a decade’s fashion. For me, the ’90s will forever be synonymous with the sandal. From Carrie Bradshaw’s barely-there Manolo Blahniks to Jennifer Aniston’s off-duty flip-flops, a handful of sandal silhouettes defined the look back then; coincidentally, they’re the very same styles we’re seeing everywhere now.
The ’90s Sandal Trends to Know
As a ’90s baby who fell in love with fashion in the early aughts, a handful of images and iconic moments of that era live rent-free in my mind, like Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy in her Prada sandals outside her Tribeca apartment, or the strappy Manolo Blahnik heels backstage at Michael Kors. (Both are styles I have sourced vintage.)
The decade marked a notable shift away from the constraints of overly conservative heels of the ’80s toward something more stylish and sensible, for the girl-about-town who needed shoes to work as hard as she did. Designers like Manolo Blahnik and Miuccia Prada mastered this visual language in the ’90s, creating pairs that were as lusted after then as they are now.
The minimalist nature of these sandals has given them a staying power that’s outlasted nearly every shoe trend since. I find myself returning to these same silhouettes, not just for their cultural cachet, but for the feeling. Dressing in the ’90s was lighter, freer, more instinctual. Beyond the nostalgia that inspires much of my vintage sourcing today, there was an ease to these shoes that still reads modern today. And it proves just how little a great sandal needs to change to remain relevant.
From Prada’s most recent runway to Demna’s ode to the Tom Ford era at Gucci, today’s coveted sandals keep circling back to what the ’90s got right: sensual without trying too hard, practical enough for women constantly on the go, yet refined enough to define an entire look. Let’s take a closer look at which they are.