The Genius of Chloé’s Front Row Wedge Moment

Gifting gone right and nostalgia for the single It item!

The row of cork wedges from fall 2024 Chloé seen ‘round the world.

Yesterday, writer Nicolaia Rips, who knows I love a saucy shoe moment, sent me a photo of the new Chloé designer Chemena Kamali taking a bow at her debut show. “Look at the shoes,” she wrote to me. At first, I thought Nicolaia meant Kamali’s scuffed white sneakers that she wore with loose jeans. Big whoop. But at a second glance, I saw what she meant: A gaggle of front-row guests were wearing hulking cork wedges with a thick banded black upper and a slingback strap. The whole front row, about five women, including Sienna Miller, the patron saint of Boho, were wagging their gams in the beacon-on-the-runway sandal. (I curse the one woman wearing the caramel thigh-high boots). I haven’t thought of a Chloé shoe in years, aside from a studded Susanna bootie. And now, this Chloé shoe was front and center; full view on Vogue Runway’s last photo of fashion’s new darling taking her first bow; the industry’s version of spread eagle. The photo made rounds on Twitter. Vogue France posted a close up of the Chloé-clad front row feet. It was PR art at its finest; a give that girl-a-raise move that was of course manufactured, but seemingly done with elegant cheek.  

Full front row view!

I had dinner with my former Vogue colleague who now works at a brand who agreed that the Chloé footwear placement was smart, calling it a “non-strategy strategy” noting, “I think what you have is the more important thing—most brands over-analyze and over-strategize their VIP dressing and gifting and seating. But instead of breaking their brains over it, Chloé just gave them all the same shoe and decided it would be fun,” she said, adding. “They meme’d themselves.” She noted that labels are obsessed with dressing influencers or guests in all different looks and that companies are drunk on strategies that should show a range of their offerings. It’s a faux pas if the guests or influencers come to the show in the same gifted outfit or product. But leaning into this repeat footwear moment is why the Chloé front row shoe image was so refreshing. The move is contrary to everything we see in the modern fashion gifting-verse and zeroes in on a single product that ultimately unifies. 

The move to dress a front row in the same shoe harkened back to the pre-influencer, pre-Instagram era in which industry gifting surely existed but was more focused on one-item pushes. In the early ’00s, there was the phenomenon of the Balenciaga Motorcycle bag, which was an unlikely hero product. The bag was not intended to go into production until Kate Moss spotted the bag in Nicolas Ghesquière’s studio, and then she wore it. Ghesquière then sent a limited amount to his fashion friends, simply women he admired in the industry, and voila, the bag became a major hit. Eventually, it landed on the shoulders of the Olsens, Nicole Richie, and then every chick in SoHo and beyond. The same gifting sentiment goes for Tom Ford’s Yves Saint Laurent Mombasa bag, which Ford sent to 50 editors as well as Gwyneth Paltrow. Then, the bag was flying off the shelves. Sold out! In 2008, Proenza Schouler seeded their PS1 messenger bag before the piece went to market by handing it off to their circle of editor friends and It girls, or as Florence Kane wrote for the November 2008 issue of Vogue, “secretly enlisted a handful of close female friends to take them on test runs around town.”

First paragraph talks about Proenza Schouler sending the bag out…

It’s worth noting that over the years, industry seeding has become increasingly  random. It’s funny to hear older editors gab about what they get sent today versus in the ‘90s or early ‘00s. Back then, budgets were plump and the gifts were delicious: A supple leather It bag; a fabulous It shoe. But maybe it has nothing to do with budgets: As my editorial-to-brand friend also said, “Labels were pushing one item.” Now, brands have pages and pages of options and attempt to send them all out. Plus, most products sent out are often useless, like a weird castoff plate or heinous key chain that immediately gets resold to The RealReal. One old-school editor referred to bad gifting as “Duty Free Doha” to essentially point out the randomness of brand presents. And yet, the items sent aren’t even duty free! At least at duty free, you can nab a great scarf that translates from continent to continent.

Blurry image of a woman in NYT carrying a YSL Mombasa from May 2002.

Ultimately, these tchotchkes do nothing for brand identity because they are inherently designed sans essence or thought. Then, they are sent out without essence or thought. There’s no sartorial camaraderie because no one actually wants—or even can—wear the pieces. If an item is sent to you but you didn’t wear it, did it even exist in the first place? Many of the trend stories we see are written about what It item guests are wearing to fashion week or whatever a celebrity is wearing out and about. And let’s not forget that back in the day, the Mombasa bag helped YSL sell 90 million dollars of accessories, which accounted for 26 percent of total sales at the time. Thoughtful single product pushes are effective.

Though I was looking at them from a computer screen, these Chloé shoes appear to be a good product and something that people will want to step out in. The shoes seem wearable for the everyday person and also for the beautiful Chloé guest like supermodel Liya Kebede. The shoe is a real deal classic. My aforementioned anonymous friend made a great observation that this is how brands should be seeding their editors and influencers. “How amazing would it be if Chloé mirrored this strategy in their gifting, and we saw hoards of editors and influencers in these ‘Clydesdale’ wedges?” she says. “Refreshing in an era when brands try to send everyone something different, or worse, something totally useless and ugly.” And that’s the thing: A simple bag and an easy shoe can be a fantastic brand gift because they are universal, don’t dominate a look, and allow the wearer to interpret the piece in whatever way they feel it aligns with their style.

voguefrance

A post shared by @voguefrance

The front row shoe also symbolizes that humor is seeping into fashion. The Chloé move was pre-meditated, as all industry gifting is, but this photo op was so manicured, so flagrantly visible and on the nose. The celebrities blatantly shaking their front row feet in the Chloé shoe takes the piss out of the industry’s open gifting secret and makes for a lighthearted image that is both chic and funny. Plus, the Chloé front row wedge was visually uniting, creating a niche cult moment that is cheekily self-aware and because of that, is cool. Don’t be surprised if the Chloé wedges becomes a must-have instead of a neverworns. Mark my words, watch the hooves. 

New season of NEVERWORNS dropping next week…FINALLY!