Flip-flops: the comeback

What shall it profit a man to gain a little airspace around his toes but potentially lose all sex appeal? This is a conundrum men may have to mull this summer because, after years in the fashion doldrums, flip-flops are storming back into style. How do we know? Variations of the surfy sandal have been popping up in spring/summer collections from the likes of Prada, the Row, Studio Nicholson and Auralee – all the chicest spots, essentially. Then Puerto Rican pop demigod Bad Bunny appeared on the cover of February’s Vogue Brasil in a pair of baby blue Havaianas. Right now, anything Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio touches turns to gold (or, perhaps, rubber).

The flip-flop’s resurgence will no doubt cleave society in two, and where you stand may be influenced by the recentness of your last pedicure. But their return can also be linked to the rise of low-profile loafers and slides, towhich the thin-soled flip-flop is perhaps the natural summer successor. If you’re into a barely-there slip-on beneath a roomy, puddling trouser leg, you’re in luck.

And if you’re considering the inadequacy of the flip-flop in the face of a wet and windy British summer, worry not: the actor Alexander Skarsgård has been out field-testing (see picture above). At the recent Sundance film festival premiere of Charli xcx’s mockumentary The Moment – hosted in the cold, snowy mountain town of Park City, Utah – the Swede finished a look of trenchcoat, tie and slacks with a pair of studded Valentino flip-flops. He remains, as yet, unfrostbitten.

Photograph by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images