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Ten years ago, I waltzed into an American Apparel and bought a pair of heeled fisherman jelly sandals made out of a clear, sparkly PVC. My underdeveloped brain failed to consider the fact that the literal plastic, plus the San Fernando Valley heat would lead to some truly heinous blistering. Not only were they uncomfortable, but I couldn’t figure out how to style them. It’s safe to say that my jelly sandals rarely left the closet after their inaugural outing, and I’ve been quite staunchly against repurchasing them ever since.
But recently, a pair of shoes from The Row are forcing me to reconsider my anti-jelly stance. The Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen-fronted brand sent a pair of woven flats down the runway during their pre-fall 2024 show in Paris last September. Already a staple on editor wishlists, perhaps these are 2024’s answer to the mesh flats craze.
These funky flats are the subtler alternative to the chunky PVC sandals of my youth. With clear and light pink colorways, The Row’s cage flats appeal to even the most subtle dressers—another problem I had with the shoes’ inherent loudness. But for the loud and proud, there’s always the summery slushie colors: cherry red and electric blue. There’s no doubt that we’ll be seeing these shoes everywhere this summer, but the jelly sandal has been creeping its way back into the zeitgeist for some time now—with a little help from Taylor Swift, Blake Lively, and Jennifer Lawrence.
Celebrities have underscored that there are plenty of ways to wear the jelly, showing me that it isn’t such an impossible shoe to style. Earlier this year, Swift channelled the shoe’s ’80s appeal for her release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) where she donned a pair of pink jelly fisherman sandals with an otherwise-timeless white tank and jeans. In 2021, Lively paired her brown pair with a sweet summer sundress, while Lawrence opted to style pink jellies with jeans and a T-shirt in 2022. (I can only imagine that Lawrence, a devout Alaïa mesh flats fan, will be rocking The Row’s jellies in no time.
Still, despite all of the celebrity endorsements, it’s The Row that has made me rethink my apprehension. While they’ve definitely solved my apprehension around styling (their expertly layered pieces make a great foil to the candy-colored shoes), it’s still too soon to say if they’ll leave my feet covered in Band-Aids. But, honestly, they may be worth the blisters.
