Ballet Flats Aren’t Going Anywhere This Autumn — Here Are Our Favourites

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The ballet flat has long been the cool girl's footwear of choice. It all began with Rose Repetto, who stitched a pair of ballet pumps for her son, the dancer Roland Petit, in Paris in 1947. She went on to establish her shoe company, Repetto, and the style took off when Brigitte Bardot donned a pair in the 1956 film And God Created Woman. No longer just practical shoes for dancers, the ballet pump was worn on- and offscreen by Parisian ingénues, and confirmed as the chic shoe of choice when Audrey Hepburn paired hers with cigarette trousers and a black rollneck in 1957's Funny Face.

Fast-forward to the '00s, when the likes of Kate Moss and Sienna Miller wore classic black ballet pumps with skinny jeans and silk blouses, floaty floral dresses and leather jackets, and women everywhere thanked the fashion gods for relief from four-inch heels. A symbol of effortless, feminine dressing, it suddenly fell out of favour when comfort and style collided in the chunky sneaker trend. The ballet pump ceased to be the only flat shoe option and was relegated to the backs of our wardrobes as other styles — the trek sandal, the hiking boot, the dad sneaker — reigned supreme.

When the trend first re-emerged two year ago, it was the classic ballet flat that rose to the top, with celebrities championing the classic ballet flat in a host of styles: Matilda Djerf in classic, black Chanel flats, Lily Rose-Depp in heeled Repettos and Zoe Kravitz in velvet Mary Janes from The Row. In 2024, studded and mesh ballerina styles have emerged, thanks to Ganni and Alaïa respectively, taking over the street style at Copenhagen fashion week and elbowing their way into our daily wardrobe rotations. The edgy update to the classic ballet flats is refreshing, reconfirming that the new wave of 'balletcore' is all about rebellion.

Scroll on to find the ballet flats we’ll be wearing through autumn and winter this year (and beyond).