Fashion trends can sometimes be a funny and odd thing to wrap your brain around. Some looks scream stylish and classic. Others can leave you wondering when did this become something most people want to wear as part of their every day style. Lately, I’ve encountered one trend that seems to be popping up everywhere I go and that’s the fuzzy slipper slides.
Living in NYC you’ll see a wide range of people coming from different races, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds with their own unique styles and tastes. Just about anything goes in the city that never sleeps. You’ll be walking past a woman who looks like they belong on the Fashion Week runway or riding the subway with a goth punk wearing all black and having multiple piercings all over their face.
While New Yorkers often have this attitude of anything goes and shrugging off what they see before going about their business, this still doesn’t mean that we won’t have an opinion on it. Much less speculate why some people think certain things are a good idea.
I don’t really claim that I know everything there is to know about fashion. Sometimes, I march to the beat of my own drum when it comes to what I personally like to wear, regardless if it’s the rage or not. I will say I dress well enough to be presentable among civilized society. But there are times I’m really at a loss for what has been deemed as the fashion that everyone is wearing.
I started seeing more and more young women wearing these fuzzy slipper slides when I find myself walking around the city. It’s hard to ignore them when they kind of stand out from the sea of sneakers, flip-flops, and peep toe sandals I see during the summer.
At first I presumed maybe the wearer of those shoes was doing a quick deli or supermarket run across the street and didn’t want to completely change to do an errand that’s going to take less than 5 minutes. Eventually it started to dawn on me that these fuzzy slippers, that look like bedroom slippers or shoes made for lounging around your apartment, was really tailored to be worn as regular footwear for when you go out. All I could say was, “Huh?”
I brushed away what I had seen, like any New Yorker does, and concluded that maybe this young woman was just one of the few with an odd sense of style, all in the name of keeping her feet cozy and comfortable. Last week, when I stepped out to grab food during my lunch break, I spotted two women dressed in athletic wear with the same fuzzy slipper slides but in different styles and colors. After witnessing two women walking side-by-side wearing these shoes, it became quite obvious to me that this really wasn’t a one-off kind of thing and it somehow became a new and persistent trend recently.
The origins of a trend is something that always ignites my curiosity, especially when it’s one I’ll never understand nor will I take part in. Who was the one who started it? When did it catch on like fire? Most trends can almost always be traced back to a celebrity, as a bit of Googling does show that plenty of famous people have been in on it since June.
I understand people want to look good while being comfortable in what they wear at the same time, but one does have to take a step back and realize when we’re all just a little absurd. Not even the famous faces and beautiful people of the world are immune from it. This fuzzy slippers as regular footwear just feels lazy and tacky to wear, unless you’re going across the street to buy a carton of milk. I don’t see how wearing these kind of shoes to meet a friend or go to a concert is practical and acceptable.
As the case with most fads and trends, the fuzzy slipper slides will most likely fade away until the next weird and crazy thing starts to latch onto the closets of the trendsetters and style conscious. Personally, I can’t wait until I’m no longer seeing fuzzy slippers be the “it” style of the season.
Have you ever encountered a fashion trend that took you completely by surprise or just plain confused you?
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