With Birkenstocks and Crocs now ubiquitous, fashion’s ugly shoe trend was in danger of losing its shock factor. So the arrival of Balenciaga’s collaboration with the orthopaedic brand Scholl could not have come a moment too soon.
The collection, which launched this week, includes a “Frankenshoe” style that combines the buckle and front strap found on the classic Pescura Scholl sandal with a cork sole and a spindly high heel. It is priced at £625.
The collection also includes a £525 white clog mule, which resembles the Scholl designs often worn by nurses and cleaners, and a pool slider with logo for £315.
Balenciaga’s collaboration is confirmation that Scholl is the latest sensible shoe to gain its moment in the fashion spotlight. Celebrities including Lily-Rose Depp and Sarah Jessica Parker are wearing its shoes and Scholl has reported sales this year are up, with those in the 29- to 45-year-old age group buying the designs with a higher price point. The Cameron – a heeled version of the Pescura – is now the most popular style, retailing at £200.
Emma Davidson, the fashion director of Dazed, has a pair of the Balenciaga heeled Scholls. She says the appeal is “the weird contrast … an old maid type of shoe with the addition of that spindly heel”. Davidson is a fan of ugly shoes in general. “Even though I am a bit scruffy, I always like to feel a bit glam,” she says. “The shoes contrast with what I wear and I think it adds an edge.”
The Scholl Manufacturing Company was founded in 1906 by the American podiatrist Dr William Scholl. The current US-based company Dr Scholl’s now largely sells comfort-first trainers, the brand’s UK focus is on footcare products and Scholl, which sells the Pescura and collaborated with Balenciaga, is based in Italy.
The Pescura was first launched in 1956 and Audrey Hepburn, Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton wore the shoes. They became popular in the 70s, when they were known as the “exercise sandal”, owing to benefits such as improving posture and muscle tone. Rebecca Shawcross, a senior curator at Northampton’s Shoe Museum, remembers people wearing them because they were “doing you some good. It’s the idea that they were outdoorsy, carefree … In some respects, Scholl were quite ahead of their time.”
If the clog mule is most associated with Scholl, it has also been taken up by other brands. Ancient Greek Sandals have a version for summer, and they were on the catwalk at Miu Miu’s runway show. The Balenciaga collaboration is not the first, either – the brand also worked with Ganni and the DJ and designer Honey Dijon in 2022.
Yves Guy Coulter, Scholl’s chief brand officer, says the brand is taking advantage of newer footwear fashion. “Scholl’s resurgence is definitely part of a wider trend toward comfort-driven footwear. More and more people – especially younger consumers – are rejecting the idea that fashion has to come at the expense of comfort.”
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However, describing the Pescura as a healthy choice is not entirely straightforward, says Dr Helen Branthwaite, the chief clinical adviser for the Royal College of Podiatry. “The wooden sole can help but that is counterbalanced by an open slip-on design,” she says. “This style provides no support for the foot and makes the foot work harder.”
They are, of course, preferable to long-term wear of pointed-toe high heels – a shape that Shawcross says has dominated “the last 400 or 500 years”.
The curator says Scholls may be the latest in a line of shoes that take a bit of time to become accustomed to. “So many people now wear Crocs,” she says. “But at one point there was a bit of: ‘Oh no. Why would you wear those?’”
