Walking with two old friends on a late spring Saturday in New York City’s West Village. They’re talking about who will book next week’s wine bar, difficult marital issues and potential career changes. I guarantee I’m not a weirdo; I’m counting pair after pair of toe ring sandals and looking at passersby’s feet, not listening.
Ranging from leather to metal hardware resembling the toe rings you showed in the early aughts, the unusual summer shoe trend has captured the fashion set’s attention lately with a titular ring around the big toe. Trend predicting and market intelligence tool Trendalytics claims worldwide searches for “toe ring sandals” are up 149 percent from last year.
Clearly in the pro-toe group, the well-dressed ladies of West Village and I spotted Tory Burch’s surrealist pierced slide—a calling card for cool girls—and Hermès’s leather toe loop sandals, a trendy substitute for the fashion house’s legacy “H” cutout Oran as my eyes fixated on street level.
Jennifer Lawrence comes to support the divisive, fashionable summer shoe: in early May, the Die, My Love actress praised the toe ring sandal trend via a velcro-strapped pair by St. Agni that surrounded her oxblood-painted big toe. Keep in mind that Lawrence is a consistent arbitrator for about-to-blow-up shoe trends; she was instrumental in starting last summer‘s jelly sandal craze and is one of the ring leaders for the popularity spike of vintage trainers. Therefore, consider her toe loop pair as a clairvoyant indicator of what summer 2025 has in store.
The toe-centric sandals walked all over Spring 2025’s runways, but before the West Village girls and Lawrence were pounding the ground in shoes that highlight their pedicures. Contrasted against bare sets and warm-weather tailoring, Tod’s criss-crossing flats were made in tan, emerald, cerulean, and mahogany-colored leather. Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler matched black tights with strappy heeled shoes—a mix that will make some people’s skin crawl but will motivate others to consider how to carry their statement socks into summer.
A toe loop sandal offers a more interesting design than a conventional flip-flop or leather thong when tastemakers prize a single sense of personal style above all else in 2025. Not only must you be happy with having your dogs out, but you also have to want to bring particular attention to them—they even feel like the last boss of open-toed sandals.
Furthermore, the toe-front sandal is the logical next step from spring’s peep-toe shoe trend in a sequence of contentious shoe fads that highlight the usually overlooked body part, like peek-a-pedicure mesh flats and Maison Margiela’s cleft-toed Tabis. Having a seat belt around your big toe obviously helps to reduce the likelihood that your shoe will fly off during your walk to the corner store or your commute into the office. A shoe that combines utility with unusual design? Given such a sophisticated statement style, it’s not surprising I wasn’t listening to a word my pals were saying.
