I’ll be honest with y’all. When a lady from Tieks reached out and asked if I’d like a free pair of their ballet flats to review, I read that email about three times.
Me? A fashion blogger? Honey, no. I write about trumpet creeper, thunderstorms, old North Carolina places, and what happens when you pull into Buc-ee’s. But I do like nice things. Not flashy things. Classic things. The kind you can wear for years without looking like you’re chasing whatever the fashion world decided was fashionable this Tuesday. That, to me, is a Southern quality.
So naturally, I said yes.
And before I tell you whether I actually like these shoes, you know I can’t just talk about a pair of ballet flats without digging into where they came from.
Most folks hear “ballet flat” and immediately think Paris. I did too. But the ballet flat as we know it today owes a whole lot to an American woman named Claire McCardell. McCardell was a Maryland-born sportswear designer who believed women’s clothes ought to be comfortable enough to actually live in. Her own mama was from Jackson, Mississippi, so there’s a little Southern blood in this story right from the beginning.
In the early 1940s, McCardell wanted a shoe to go with her easy, comfortable dresses, so she went to Capezio, the company famous for making ballet slippers, and asked them to make something sturdy enough for everyday life. It turned out to be perfect timing. Leather was rationed during World War II, and ballet flats offered women a practical alternative. Department stores picked them up, and by 1949, they had made the cover of Vogue.
Then France got involved.
In 1947, Rose Repetto made a pair of ballet flats for her son, a dancer. A few years later, Brigitte Bardot wore Repetto flats in And God Created Woman, and Audrey Hepburn made the look practically immortal when she paired ballet flats with slim black pants in Funny Face.
But here’s the thing: down South, we never really needed Paris to tell us a good flat was useful.
They make sense here. They’re cool enough for our summers, pretty enough with a church dress, and practical enough to wear with a pair of old Levi’s. They work with a full skirt, a shift dress, black pants, jeans, or whatever else you happen to pull out of the closet. Southern women figured that out a long time ago.
Bug and Belle have both worn ballet flats since they were little girls. And in the 25 years I’ve known Mama Clark, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen her without a pair somewhere close by.
I just never understood the appeal because I could never find a pair that didn’t hurt.
Every pair I tried either rubbed my heels raw or pinched my toes by lunchtime. I’d buy them because I loved how they looked, wear them once or twice, and eventually shove them in the back of the closet.
Until these.
The first thing that surprised me about the Tieks ballet flats is that I can actually wear them for hours. Not just long enough to get through church and lunch, but an entire day. And so far? Not a single blister.
I think a lot of that has to do with the Italian leather. It’s soft and stretchy, and instead of making your foot conform to the shoe, the shoe seems to give a little and conform to you. I don’t know what kind of magic they’ve got going on over there, but I’m not complaining.
And they fold completely in half, which I actually love. You can tuck them into your purse for a long drive and pull them out when you get where you’re going. They don’t look like something you packed as an emergency because your feet were killing you. They still look like a real shoe.
And then there’s that little flash of blue on the bottom.
It’s unnecessary, which is probably why I like it. Just a little bit of something pretty that nobody else really has to see.
I reckon I finally understand what Mama Clark has known all these years: a good pair of ballet flats isn’t really a trend. It’s a staple.
Like a cast-iron skillet. Like a good pitcher for sweet tea. Like that one church dress you can pull out of the closet year after year and it still looks right.
You just have to find the right pair.
I think I finally did.
Tieks sent me this pair free of charge to review. I wasn’t paid to say anything about them, and these are my honest opinions. If I didn’t like them, y’all would know it.
