These Boho Boots Will Be Fall’s Status Shoe

Nothing fires up Google’s algorithm quite like talk of the return of skinny jeans, but for fall/winter 2025 designers are conspiring to relaunch another dormant Noughties trend: slouchy boho boots that puddle around the ankles and fold over the calves. Seen on the likes of Kate Moss and Sienna Miller back in the day, the style also has a touch of swashbuckling Jack Sparrow about it (another Noughties icon).

Over on the fall/winter 2025 runways, Ralph Lauren and Zimmermann took a more subtle approach via elegant knee-high leather boots with buccaneer buckle detailing and a slight scrunch. Others went full-on pirate, with boots big enough to fill with loot – at Balmain the crumpled-up boots were so cavernous you could fit another leg in there, and some even had hidden coin purses concealed in the folds, where you can quite literally hide your treasure.

Louis Vuitton leaned into boho Noughties nostalgia with its sheepskin-lined studded boots that rippled over the ankle (very Sienna Miller circa 2003). Other styles, meanwhile, had a sleeker leg with a fold over the top, in true Three Musketeers fashion.

One of the precursors for this revival has been the renewed interest in Vivienne Westwood’s famous Pirate boots, which were designed in the ’80s, but later defined Noughties style. Earlier this summer, Haim recreated an image of Kate Moss leaning against a car in the buckled, scrunched-up boots. They featured in Westwood’s first runway show, Pirate, in the autumn/winter 1981 season, where they were styled with smock shirts and admiral boots. “Malcolm and I didn’t want to be seen as token rebels,” the designer later said of that collection. “We wanted to get off this island and plunder the world, like pirates.”

Another brand that will always be aligned with this style of boot is boho pioneer Isabel Marant. Earlier this month Vogue declared that “Isabel Marant feels so right for now,” noting that even the wedge sneaker has seen a 1,580% spike in searches on eBay year on year. Another longtime Marant signature is suede boho boots that look like they have been squished, with the fabric scrunching and pooling around the ankle.

White leather slouchy boots couldn’t be more ’80s, but for this autumn, boots are realized in richer shades such as chestnut, black, grey and burgundy. These boots also lend themselves to the Noughties boot tuck, which started bubbling up on the street-style scene this February. “I’m living by my own mantra that skinny jeans walked so jeans in boots could run,” Vogue’s Julia Hobbs explained in February. “What started as a tongue-in-cheek take on 2010s ‘date-night dressing’ has become my everyday uniform.” And any of these boots, wherever they fall on the pirate scale, can house a pair of drainpipes snuggly in the leg. Ahoy autumn!

Shop slouchy ankle boots:

Isabel Marant

studded suede ankle boots

Jil Sander

half calfskin kitten-heel boots

Proenza Schouler

leather over-the-knee boots

Isabel Marant

Elita tasseled suede knee boots

Khaite

Andee slouchy knee-high boot

Manolo Blahnik

Calasso leather ankle boot