Something soft has been happening on the pavement lately, a shoe so quiet it barely announces itself and yet manages to eclipse everything louder around it. The jazz slipper, that whisper-thin lace-up borrowed wholesale from the dance studio, has climbed into the upper reaches of the Lyst Index of most-wanted products, which in the language of fashion amounts to a coronation. After several seasons spent negotiating with chunky soles and armored silhouettes, the foot appears ready for something closer to a caress.

A Shoe Born in the Rehearsal Room

Michael Rider set the choreography in motion at Celine, sending lace-up ballet slippers down the runway with a nonchalance that made every other shoe in the room feel slightly overdressed. The lineage is impeccable, since the style was designed for people who spend their lives in motion, the sort of feet Edgar Degas painted obsessively in his rehearsal rooms and Bob Fosse drilled into legend in All That Jazz. What arrives now is that same anatomy transplanted onto city sidewalks, an almond toe, a modest lace and a sole so slight you will become intimately acquainted with every cobblestone between the office and the aperitivo. Where the dancer’s version promised weightlessness on a wooden floor, the street version promises something subtler, the illusion of a woman who has somewhere charming to be and intends to arrive there quietly.

How to Wear the Softest Shoe of the Season

White leather is the headliner, a shade that reads less as Fifties nostalgia and more as an afternoon in the Marais, and it will scuff within a week, which is precisely the point, since the whole gesture depends on looking as though you have worn them for years. Faded denim and a cashmere knit remain the natural companions, though a lace-trimmed silk slip in high summer produces something closer to alchemy. Black delivers a gentler entrance and makes the foot look improbably delicate after seasons of elongating points, while a red pair carries a schoolgirl impertinence that somehow lands as sophistication. Proenza Schouler, Bally, Soeur, COS and Arket have each staged their own interpretation, which means the trend has passed the only test that matters, availability at every altitude of the market. One warning applies, since these shoes were built for gliding rather than stomping, and they will punish anyone who marches. They were built for gliding rather than stomping, which means the jazz slipper asks for a certain choreography in return, a fair price for the softest shoe of the year.