It's Here: 2025's Most (Unexpectedly) Elegant Flat-Shoe Trend

At Who What Wear, we’re constantly dissecting street style snaps for the latest trends, but there’s another secret weapon in our forecasting arsenal: the “new arrivals” sections of our favorite retailers. Recently, we spotted a rising star in the shoe department—grommet-embellished flats—making waves across sites like Net-a-Porter, Zara, Mango, and Nordstrom.

What makes this trend so surprising but intriguing? Grommets were once a humble tool for securing laces, but they have now evolved into a bold design statement. They’ve also long been associated with utilitarian and industrial aesthetics—think grunge and punk—and are being reinvented as high-fashion accents. Alaïa is one label widely recognized for pioneering this shift. In its F/W 16 collection, it showcased grommet-adorned boots, and today, under current creative director Pieter Mulier, it has injected the detail into the brand’s coveted ballet flats.