After starting 2024 as the hottest brand of the year, there’s no stopping Prada right now – from the success of its new cult Buckle bag to its plans to (literally) conquer Space. Meanwhile, the brand’s loafers are proving to be highly covetable this season, with eBay reporting that searches have increased by over 60 per cent in the run up-to Christmas.
There’s another shoe we’ve got our eye on at Vogue HQ: the platform brogues from spring/summer 2011, which made a reappearance on the runway for spring/summer 2025. Considering the impact the divisive style had on our footwear choices last time around, we’re expecting another resurgence in the new year.
“I graduated in 2016 wearing a pair of knock-off Prada brogues with super-thick soles sandwiched between layers of jute and colourful foam,” Daniel Rodgers, British Vogue’s fashion news editor, remembers. “They’re just on the right side of clownish. I bought them from Aldo and I was unaware that they had a) trickled down from Mrs Prada’s spring/summer 2011 collection and b) would disintegrate after just a couple of wears. This was before the resale sector grew into the behemoth it is now. I’d be better informed this time around.”
Happily, there are now plenty of real-deal Prada brogues, in a whole assortment of colours, available on the second-hand market – and at a fraction of the original RRP. But make sure you get in there early: when Miu Miu’s ballet flats enjoyed a revival a couple of years ago, prices shot up in response to the enormous demand.
We can easily see the likes of Katie Holmes – a long-time proponent of the wrong-shoe theory – taking to the streets of Manhattan in a pair of Prada’s colourful platforms, sooner rather than later. Plus, with the “shoot” (another Marmite footwear trend from the 2010s) also making a comeback, 2025 looks set to be the year we swap our delicate ballerinas for something a whole lot chunkier.
Below, see Vogue’s edit of the best Prada platform brogues to shop second-hand now.
