Plot Twist: Birkenstocks Upstaged Uggs as Celebrities’ Favorite Ugly Shoe This Year

After a foot sweat-inducing four-year reign, Ugg boots have finally been usurped as fashion’s favorite ugly shoe. In their place, a new contender is quickly converting celebrities like Zendaya, Katie Holmes, Gigi Hadid, and Kaia Gerber into avid fans. Allow me to reintroduce you to Birkenstock: the humble cork-soled German clog and sandal company quietly gunning for a place in your heart and your closet.

Whereas Ugg’s trendy platform styles and shearling-lined slippers enjoyed an instantaneous boom during and after the pandemic—a period that led many to prioritize comfort wherever possible—Birkenstock’s climb to It-shoe status has been more of a slow burn. Gradually stoked by lucrative collaborations with the likes of Manolo Blahnik, Jil Sander, Proenza Schouler, Rick Owens, Staud, and Tekla, the brand now seems ready to claim its rightful place on the ugly shoe throne.

Dawson’s Creek alum Katie Holmes initially picked up a pair of Birkenstocks in 2020. Four years later, she’s seemingly still wearing the same pair of black sandals with silver buckles. But crucially, the Broadway star has begun styling her slides in a more elevated way. In April, the 46-year-old street style muse definitively proved the Arizona Birko-Flor can be business casual in a light blue button-up and baggy ivory trousers.

Gigi Hadid may very well be the Birkenstock clog’s biggest fan. She wore the shoe at least four times in public this year, beginning with a comfy outfit she devised for an April sleepover at Bradley Cooper’s apartment in New York City. In July, the model reached for her taupe suede Birks first for a sweatpants-clad walk through SoHo with Cooper and her beloved yellow Miu Miu bag. Later that month, she was photographed leaving a photoshoot in Manhattan wearing a blue Lesyanebo trench coat, a teal crop top, butter yellow loungewear pants from her cashmere clothing line, Guest in Residence, and yet another pair of clogs—this time in the brand’s mink colorway.

Hadid didn’t retire her mules when summer ended, though. In fact, her favorite pair popped again not once but twice in fall. After packing the shoes for an October trip to California—where the knitwear mogul famously made her yearlong relationship with Cooper Erewhon-official—she lugged them back to the city for their cutest couple style moment yet. In November, the pair solidified their bond in matching cherry red outfits complete with sneakers for him and beige Birkenstocks for her.

Matching Birkenstocks became a fixture in Kaia Gerber and Austin Butler’s relationship at the end of last year. Although the two have possibly parted ways, Gerber’s relationship with her Boston clogs is still going strong. She’s even acquired a white shearling-lined pair—perfect for walking to ballet class in winter.