Slighted, I started actively soliciting opinions on the shoes, saying things like, “Yeah, I’m doing well, but these are impossible to walk in,” just to steer attention towards the enormous blocks on my feet. The reactions I registered ranged from “Baby, no” (a social media editor at a competitor magazine) and “You look like you’re going to All Bar One” (a British publicist who has, in fact, been to All Bar One) to “Please, I’m triggered” (a colleague). I get it. Not enough time has passed between the Triple S first being popularised in the late 2010s for them to be reappraised as an ironic, nostalgia-based trend in the 2020s. But I liked what I heard: there was a small thrill in standing outside what others deemed cool. Particularly in an environment like fashion week, where coolness is the measure of a person’s worth. Looking terrible – or in this case, just plain old corny – is really a very liberating thing.
Besides, the critics are wrong. The original Triple S – so named for its stacked sole and first unveiled in Balenciaga’s autumn/winter 2017 collection – is one of the most significant design pieces of the past decade. Considered so controversial that Ralph Rucci once wrote “I have been told to be quiet, and I have turned my eyes away, but I cannot tolerate this any longer” in a blistering Instagram screed, it has since birthed an entire genre of so-wrong-they’re-right shoes, a trend that is still (still) ongoing. There’s a reason every drop sold out within 60 minutes, a reason they were so aggressively bootlegged, and a reason I once took someone much older – and much wealthier – on a trip to Dover Street Market, solely to have him buy them for me, with no intention of returning any of the favors he might have been hoping for. The glee I felt prancing around East London far outweighed any shame at feeling like a con artist. I’m no longer susceptible to the desperate tug of a shoe, but I’m glad I can wear these ones to Prada on the weekend. I think Miuccia – the high priestess of ugly-chic – would understand.
