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A completely backless white lace dress practically demands sky-high heels to match the drama, the kind of pairing that photographs like a single cohesive statement. Jennifer Lopez went the opposite direction entirely. Stepping out in Paris on Sept. 29, she paired her daring little white dress with a shoe choice nobody saw coming, and it ended up getting talked about just as much as the dress itself.
Lopez was photographed shopping in Paris at Goyard and Stella McCartney on Sept. 29. She wore a white lace slip dress with a completely backless design. Instead of reaching for her usual heels, platforms, or barely-there sandals, she paired the delicate dress with tall white crew socks and chunky black leather loafers, a combination that photographers and fans immediately noticed.
The outing wasn’t entirely relaxed, either. Lopez reportedly lost patience with the paparazzi crowding her during the shopping trip, addressing photographers directly at one point along the street. Before getting to the shoes, though, it’s worth taking a closer look at the dress that actually started the whole conversation in the first place.
The Dress Revealed a Redesigned Tattoo Tied to Ben Affleck
The dress itself was classic ’90s-coded territory. It was a semi-sheer white lace slip held up by spaghetti straps, with a loose, retro-leaning silhouette. The side-baring bodice left little to the imagination on one side, while the back disappeared entirely, and a thigh-high slit added one more unexpected detail to an otherwise simple little white dress.
The dress’s open side gave a clear look at her reworked rib tattoo, originally tied to ex-husband Ben Affleck and redesigned since their split. Accessories stayed relatively simple by comparison. Lopez carried a small black Lady Dior bag, wore oversized auburn-tinted aviator sunglasses, a dainty gold heart-shaped pendant necklace, and several stacked gold bracelets.
None of that, the tattoo, the bag, the sunglasses, is actually what people were talking about by the time the photos made the rounds online. The shoes were. Breaking down exactly what made that specific styling choice so divisive requires looking closely at the trend itself, and why it struck such a nerve.
Fashion Outlets Called the Shoe Pairing ‘Polarizing’ and ‘Granny’-Coded
The actual pairing was simple to describe but genuinely unexpected on Lopez specifically: tall white crew socks tucked into chunky black leather loafers. Fashion outlets quickly labeled the look “preppy” and “Gossip Girl”-coded, a deliberate departure from the heels, platforms, and barely-there sandals she typically reaches for on a street style outing.
Not every outlet reached for flattering language, either. At least one described the combination as “unexpected granny shoes,” and multiple others called it polarizing or divisive among fans reacting online. The pairing stood out precisely because it broke so cleanly from Lopez’s established reputation for glamorous, statement-making fashion week looks over the years.
Whether the shoes actually worked is mostly a matter of taste. Opinions online split fairly evenly. What’s harder to argue with is that the combination accomplished exactly what it seems to have been designed to do: get people looking twice and talking about it well after the moment itself passed.
It Was One of Several Completely Different Looks She Wore That Week
Lopez’s hair and makeup leaned softer than the shoes did. She pulled her caramel-highlighted brunette hair back into a low, middle-parted bun, leaving a few shorter pieces loose to frame her face. Dangling pearl drop earrings and a mauve lipstick rounded out a look that read considerably more romantic than the loafers suggested on their own.
This Paris moment landed inside a genuinely varied stretch of appearances. Just days earlier in Milan, Lopez had already cycled through a black velvet blazer with a matching newsboy cap, a sheer black lace dress worn over visible lingerie, and ’70s-coded flared jeans trimmed with nude lace along the sides. Against that backdrop, the loafers were really just the latest curveball in a week full of them.
The loafers worked precisely because nothing else about the outfit prepared anyone for them. That was a deliberate mismatch, not an accident. At this stage in her career, Lopez’s most talked-about fashion moments increasingly aren’t about everything matching perfectly. They’re about the one unexpected choice, a chunky loafer, a pair of white socks, that makes people stop scrolling and look twice.