Every week for about three months in 2005, I would religiously visit the shoe store at Selfridges in Birmingham and lustfully eye a pair of Nine West boots. In black suede, with patent brogue details and a fairly chunky heel, these are the “shoots” that I imagined would nestle perfectly into a wardrobe. Venn diagram of organ-hugging skinny jeans and gauzy scarves, which would catapult my high school style of shrunken H&M. children’s clothing and TK Maxx Clearance are found in those of Kate Moss. When, one evening after school, I finally came to try on said shoots with my black school skirt, I wondered aloud why the shoes in question didn’t look enough as I had imagined. “It’s because you have short legs,” a blunt 14-year-old friend (a teenage enemy?) replied as I stood on tiptoe in front of the mirror.

Tiny legs aside, I didn’t let my stature stop me. Despite the fact that shoes defined as halves of shoes and halves of boots, which clearly cut off the ankle, do not Exactly elongate your legs, shoots were a mainstay of my mid-2000s wardrobe. I remember wearing a burgundy suede Carvela style with two (!) layered circle skirts from American Apparel when I walked from my gyms from college in Camden to Amy Winehouse’s favorite, The Hawley Arms, or a beige pair from Urban Outfitters with pom-pom laces with a shiny snakeskin jumpsuit from Zara. with intentionally staggered tights and I think a (shudder) beret. I didn’t have a Tumblr, but if I had, it would have been littered with images of Alexa Chung in her many shoots – worn with pink ruffled Luella Bartley confections and skintight leather leggings. Or Kate Moss, who we rarely saw between 2014 and 2018 without her dizzying pair of Alaïa lace-up brogueswhich Vogue editors have previously called Mossy “ringmaster heels” or “most controversial shoes.” In 2022, while fashion editors flocked to current creative director Pieter Mulier’s crystal-covered ballet flats, Kate had her feet firmly planted in her favorite brogue-bootie hybrid.

Alexa Chung in her trusty pointy shoots and a ruffled Luella dress in 2008.

Jon Furniss

And once again within the Cool Britannia brigade in a lace-up version and leather leggings at the Burberry show in February 2011.

Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Shoots may be one of many hideous fashion portmanteaus (see also “jorts” and “jeggings”), but the word brings a certain indie sleaze-induced joy when shouted enthusiastically across the room for a fashion evening. “The filming is back! shouted two elders Vogue a few weeks ago, their iPhones with wishlists of pictorial evidence from Vestiaire Collective. As skinny jeans have returned to our lives, Sienna Miller has launched a second hit bohemian collection with M&S, The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas is a top collaborator for Charli London, it’s not really a surprise. .

“I grew up surrounded by sleazy indie, which seems to have been the heyday of filmmaking: that kind of questionable Victoriana-meets-Jeffrey-Campbell aesthetic definitely appealed to me,” British concedes. VogueOlivia Singer, former executive director of fashion news. “It was a period of very poor taste, I had a wardrobe of battered platform half boots which thankfully remained mostly undocumented and I feel like their renaissance really went under silence about how cheesy we all looked. My best friend and I had matching pairs from Topshop (the department store was definitely in its element back then): witchy and gross and entirely essential to the staggering lifestyle out of the white heat after listening to the horrors. which defined my adolescence. I wore a veil and a corset a lot at that time, and there was something about a shoot that I thought spoke clearly to that spirit.

Kate Moss wearing her favorite Alaïa shoots during her 40th birthday celebrations in London in 2014.

Beretta/Sims/Shutterstock

And eight more years later, in 2022.

Neil Mockford

We can largely thank Chanel for the return of the shoot on the catwalk (do you remember in 2013, when Karl Lagerfeld bought a haute couture version of the subversive brothel plant?), which for spring/summer 2025 offered a lace-up heel with thick sole in a two-tone tactile weave style. Likewise, Paco Rabanne offered a futuristic update of the mid-2000s staple, with a candy-colored heel wrapped like a confection in a clear plastic slipper. Ditto Manolo Blahnik, who introduced a smart shooting style with geometric cutouts. Not to mention tastemaker Phoebe Philo, whose tenure at Céline was limited by filming (see Pre-Fall 2017’s sharp white iterations, complete with sleek zippers, as well as a plethora of lace-up styles to big heels). British VogueJulia Hobbs’ fashion reporting director has already made Philo’s duck-foot ankle boots this season a winter office staple.

For Singer, the key to styling sessions now is to seek out vintage styles. “When I had some money, I bought a great pair of second-hand Pradas: a bit like the Westwood Ghillie platforms, but with an Edwardian energy. I have no idea what happened to them, but I constantly look them up on The RealReal. Alaïa and Manolo are also in my saved searches: their lace-up platforms from the same era. I guess the resurgence of filmmaking aligns with the bohemian revival: it’s all about that same period just distant enough that we’re nostalgic for it, but distant enough that we see it through rose-tinted glasses.

Chanel spring/summer 2025.

Armando Grillo / Gorunway.com

Manolo Blahnik spring/summer 2025.

Paco Rabanne spring/summer 2025.

Salvatore Dragone / Gorunway.com

While I resign wearing two American Apparel circle skirts in the past and try to erase from my mind any memories of buying berets, I too will be dipping my toe back into the indie sleaze shoe boot hybrid -conjuration. The next time he sometimes shouts “The shots are back!” » at a fashion party, I anticipate they will show my feet.