Apologies to the dudes who packed away their Allbirds and Crocs in order to parade around town with nothing but sweet air between their feet and the ground. "Barefoot boy summer" has been canceled.
That’s according to podiatrists alarmed at recent reports that people (men in particular) are losing their shoes and hitting the streets—heading to coffee shops, hiking trails, airports and anywhere else their hearts and soles might lead them. Social-media users on platforms like TikTok are sharing videos of themselves (and others) barefoot in the wild. (“Be that primal, hard-to-kill man you know you are, and start walking barefoot outside,” one urges.) The trend is even infiltrating popular media: In a recent episode of Succession, Lukas Matsson (played by Alexander Skarsgard) walks barefoot on the tarmac before boarding his private plane.
"I cringed," said Dr. Priya Parthasarathy, a podiatrist with Foot and Ankle Specialists of Mid-Atlantic in Silver Spring, Md., describing her reaction when she learned going barefoot was in vogue. "You’re pretty much asking for trouble, and I 100 percent do not recommend it for a lot of different reasons."
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