Haven’t you heard? Rothy’s has taken Paris by storm. The sustainable accessories brand is the star of a new pop-up shop in Le Bon Marché, one of the city’s most iconic department stores. It’s finding its way into the closets of local It girls, like Louise Follain and Alice Pilate, both of whom recently attended a très chic dinner celebrating the label’s arrival in the City of Lights.
This all signifies a seal of approval that many brands can only dream of: a warm welcome both in the world’s fashion capital and amongst its most discerning tastemakers. Credit the product, the marketing, the in-the-know women scooping up the shoes and bags, but there’s no denying that Rothy’s cool factor is on the rise.
“I think it’s all about that Mary Jane,” NYC-based artist Maayan Zilberman tells me. “Something about the square toe really hits it on the mark, and I feel like they could revolve their business just around that silhouette.” Zilberman is part of a growing cadre of creatives, including Substack darling Harling Ross and Instagram-famous host Natalie Shine, who have publicly been championing the company, often in, yes, a pair of Mary Jane flats or heels.
Courtesy of Rothy’s
“I thought the Mary-Janes were the cutest things, and then I spent one day in NYC walking 15k+ steps and couldn’t believe how great I felt,” says Shine, who discovered the brand by way of a lunch co-hosted by her friend (and fellow Rothy’s lover), Ghia founder Mélanie Masarin. In fact, Shine loved her new flats so much that she posted a video on Instagram declaring her new obsession. Later, in 2024, she was appointed an official Rothy’s ambassador, a gig that meant running around the Westminster Dog Show in a retro skirt suit and block heel Mary Janes while gifting contestants similar pairs.
The Mary Jane, in particular, was something of a turning point for Rothy’s when it launched in 2020. An ideal synergy between a major silhouette of the moment, design savvy, and smart advertising, the shoe quickly became a cult classic. It didn’t hurt either, points out Rothy’s chief product and merchandising officer, Heather Archibald, and Jamie Gersch, the company’s chief marketing officer, that the shoe inspired an entire feature on The Strategist about walking 15,000 steps around Florence, Italy, with zero pain. (This sort of “I tried it” coverage of the style has become something of a signature for Rothy’s across multiple types of media, the most recent being a walking tour around San Francisco with influencer Amy Rauch).
However, if Mary Janes secured the millennial consumer—she of cropped pants devotion and 2014 twee nostalgia—it was the chunky clogs that won over Gen Z. “It’s the cool girl shoe for our younger customer,” Gersch tells me of the category, which includes both a Boston-esque slipper and a stacked sole design that personally reminds me of a pair I clip-clopped in for the better part of the late ‘90s.
Instagram girls-about-town, like Kianna Hedjazi and Ivana Ramirez, regularly post about these styles on the grid, complete with very cute and covetable outfits to match. But Gersch points out that the real sticking factor is their multi-generational appeal. These shoes fit right into the closet of a 20-something who lives in baggy cargo jeans and floaty lace maxi skirts, but are also an ideal solution for someone a few decades older, who just needs no-fuss footwear.
A focus on comfort has always been baked into the Rothy’s recipe. When their first products hit the market in 2016, they were not uncool per se, but could be best described as durable, workday accessories that existed outside the trend cycle, rather than gotta-have-it engagement bait. Built with the mission of creating highly functional bags and shoes from recycled plastic waste, the label’s initial offering centered around sleek and simple flats and totes you could imagine a 9-to-5er leaning on for their commutes.
Courtesy of Rothy’s
“When I started and Jamie started at the very end of 2022, there were five footwear shapes, only for women, and they’ve been around since the beginning,” Archibald tells me over a Zoom call with Gersch. I’ve asked them to lay out their thoughts on Rothy’s recent rise to fashion relevance. After all, as a total fashion editor brat, I would be far more likely to shop the label for my mother than myself until the last year or so.
“It was really legacy-driven, super comfortable,” says Archibald. “Everybody knew what Rothys offered, but there wasn’t an effort made to stay relevant with trends and big macro changes that were happening in footwear.”
And while Rothy’s certainly wants to fit within the larger fashion landscape, it’s not interested in totally abandoning its roots. As the company continues to evolve and put new pieces out into the world, it remains focused on finding resonance with a social media-driven generation of newly minted adult shoppers and those who’ve supported them from the beginning. Archibald and Gersch say they’ll never forsake their OG group of customers. How could they? Their fan base is fanatical in the vein of Marvel or Sanrio fans fawning over their favorite characters, but in this case, it’s adoration of cute and comfortable shoes and bags instead.
“There is a [Rothy’s] ‘addicts’ group that’s existed for years on Facebook, and they are obsessed with the brand,” says Gersch. “There are about 25,000 of them, and they love us.” These super fans have broken off into individual friend groups; they regularly meet up. They also, Gersch points out, still truly love what Rothy’s, even as it continues to evolve.
Courtesy of Rothy’s
Some recent Rothy’s hits: crossbody and shoulder bags—millenial and Gen Z go-tos, respectively—that you can completely transform by purchasing interchangeable straps (including chain, ribbon, and guitar-style options), sassy little slingbacks (which Gersch says she wore, without pain, for a multi-mile walk in Paris), and, of course, every possible iteration of a Mary Jane you can imagine (with double straps, with heels, with bows…).
They also released espadrille Mary Jane flats for the spring and summer season in April. The style brings together two elements that are quite buzzy in the style space right now: raffia texture, which was seen everywhere from The Row to Jacquemus for Spring 2025, and the unstoppable Mary Jane shape. That said, Archibald and Gersch know full well that the silhouette will only take the brand so far before they’ll need to reinvent again. To be part of the fashion conversation, of course, is to understand that the subject is constantly changing.
“I always tell my team that a little bit of paranoia is good, and humility is a virtue,” Gersch tells me with a smile. She and Archibald are constantly in talks about how to evolve their product line without fully rewriting their company’s DNA: “You never want to get too comfortable.” She is mostly right—the exception being if you happen to be wearing just the right pair of Rothy’s.
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