Black footwear is fashionable and on-trend every season, across all sorts of vibes and styles. It is a classic, pragmatic, and traditional choice. I can’t imagine a fashion and style world in which black footwear does not feature strongly in some way, especially for Autumn and Winter. If you factor in that uniforms and formal attire usually default to black shoes, Team Black Footwear is the biggest team of all.
I see a lot of black footwear on the streets of Seattle. Black boots, sandals, Birkenstocks and sneakers with white soles are especially popular. Many of my clients have an assortment of black footwear, with some wearing it almost exclusively.
Clients who frequently wear black footwear tend to wear black clothing or patterns with black in them. Black is usually their favourite dark neutral, and black footwear is a wardrobe essential. Combining a black-based wardrobe with black shoes is an easy cohesive match. Black, and salt-and-pepper-haired clients enjoy bookending their outfits with black footwear. And black footwear can add that tough, hard edge that some like to incorporate into their styles.
Black footwear has never featured strongly in my style, though back in the ‘90s it was impossible to not to have a few pairs of black footwear. They were everything back then, especially when you worked in the rag trade like I did. I mixed things up by having red, white and metallic footwear in the mix too.
The only pair of solid black shoes I’ve had over the last fifteen years was a pair of classic tall riding boots, which I passed on three years ago. It made sense to have black footwear when I wore solid black clothing, but over the last ten years I have switched from black to dark blue clothing items. Now I don’t have a single solid black item in my wardrobe, including footwear, and I’m keeping it that way.
I wear white, cream, blush, red, bright pink, gold and yellow footwear most of the time because that works best with the palettes of my wardrobe, and the bookended outfits I like to create. But I like to wear dark footwear from time to time too. I have an old pair of tall navy boots that I wear with skirts and dresses in cold weather, and a pair of burgundy fleece-lined hi-tops for cold beach walks with the doggies. I also recently got a burgundy pair of boots that I am loving. Navy and burgundy boots are my “black” boots.
Does black footwear feature in your style?
