That’s all you really get with Balenciaga’s newest ‘shoe’

It is footwear clearly with missing parts—or coverage, but Balenciaga still touts it as a shoe. It cheekily called its newest style the Zero, and is part of the recently revealed pre-fall 2025 shown during what was described as a “fitting”, which means it was likely held at the brand’s Paris HQ on Rue de Sèvres. The clothes were the usual Demna Gvasalia mix of the familiar and even more familiar, but one item did pique the curiosity of those who viewed the photos, tagged “internal use”, shared online afterwards. This is a naught of a shoe that appears to be so only because it is destined for feet, or more accurately the underfoot. It is really a topless slide, one that environmentalist Ho Xiang Tian (何翔天) would approve! Good luck wearing them in a crowded MRT train without feeling naked or experiencing the fear that your dorsum would be trampled on.

The Zero worn with a gown during the Balenciaga fitting

According to Balenciaga, the Zero “distills footwear to its essence”—what that real nature is, the brand did not say. This could presumably mean that the wearer could go as barefoot as possible without actually being shoe-less. The slender, supposedly unisex footwear is made of rather thin EVA foam (3D-printed perhap?). It stays on the feet through a snug counter that looks like it once belonged to a pair of pumps and what appears to be a snug wrap for the big toe, which vaguely reminds us of Indian ‘toe sandals’. The Balenciaga, sadly, does not have shelf appeal. In the fitting, models wore the Zero with socks (which rather defeats the barefoot objective, we thought). From the largest sneaker you can imagine—the staggering Platform from spring 2025—to now the barely-there: What ridiculous ideas will Balenciaga dream up next?

Photos: Sneaker News (top) and Balenciaga (below)