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We’re still feeling the effects of the pandemic, and the apparel industry also had to adapt quickly to change.

Since apparel is a leading discretionary purchase, and in as much as many people are staying or working from home, there’s been less occasion for dressing for formal events or workday wear. Most people make clothing purchases ahead of special occasions, such as weddings and vacations. But as many of these events have been canceled or postponed, it has trickled down to clothing manufacturers, designers and trend setters.

Layoffs, furloughs and pay cuts had consumers looking for more comfortable clothing. The demand for tracksuits, pajamas, hoodies, sportswear and other leisurewear went through the roof. The fashion needs and interests of people have now stabilized, since people naturally prefer comfortable clothes over high design.

In addition, the pandemic propelled an already existing surge for secondhand fashion. The resale, or sale of “pre-loved,” clothing has become more of a trend globally, and is seen across several social media channels. Trying to overcome financial distress, consumers started to rethink about ways to gain something out of the unused clothing sitting in their closets. While some do decide to donate their apparel, others view their wardrobe as a tradable, valuable asset and decide to sell their slightly used goods. From a high-end perspective, the designer bag sitting on your closet shelf collecting dust can be resold online through a secondhand retail site, such as The RealReal, ThredUp, or Poshmark. And viewing it from the buyer’s side, you get to purchase brand new or barely used clothing and accessories at a more affordable price.

Some businesses found a way to expand a floundering business into a profitable one now that we are in a sort of post-pandemic phase. According to market watcher Bloomberg, women across the country have been flocking to podiatrists with shin splints, plantar fasciitis and other terrible foot injuries from trying to wear heels to the office and events for the first time in years. Personal stylists report that clients are no longer wearing heels every day like they did before, but just once a week, for important meetings. Instead, they’re opting for flats.

Birdies, a shoe startup, saw this trend coming years ago. In 2015, founders Bianca Gates and Marisa Sharkey, who worked in tech and consulting, respectively, observed that professional women were increasingly working from home, but there weren’t many options for elegant indoor shoes. The pair decided to design a line of elevated house shoes that would make women feel put together as they worked in their home offices or hosted dinner parties, but that would also be comfortable enough to wear with pajamas. They used $100,000 of their own cash to start the company, but they didn’t expect it to be a wild success.

The founders designed house slippers inspired by vintage midcentury versions, i.e., smoking slippers with a cozy robe, or velvet pink pompom slippers Marilyn Monroe might wear with a silk nightgown. Women responded to the shoes immediately, snapping up the first few rounds of inventory, which allowed the pair to place new orders and quit their jobs to run the business full time.

But Birdies quickly ran into a problem: The brand kept getting customer complaints about the soles wearing out. When the founders emailed back asking how the shoes were being worn, they realized customers were wearing them on walks around the neighborhood.

Birdies added sneakers to the mix, but embedded them with the brand’s comfortable slipper insole. The approach was a hit: Revenue doubled since 2020, and the company is on track to sell half a million shoes, generating $50 million by the end of the year.

In fact, the shoes got completely redesigned, with more robust soles that could withstand outside surfaces, and a patented seven-layer insole featuring memory foam for arch and heel support, shock absorption and cushioning. With that, Birdies rebranded the shoes for both indoor and outdoor wear.

Birdies were selling out faster than the company could make them. But the founders realized that some customers wanted even more from the design. So, Birdies’ designers got to work again, this time creating sneakers with thicker soles and more shock absorption, but equipped with the same comfortable insole. And this time they took inspiration from retro running shoes from the 1970s, complete with color palettes from the era and even houndstooth plaid patterns.

The sneakers dropped in March of this year and have been flying off the site.

In many ways, Birdies tailored its footwear to women’s pandemic needs. The founders say they were prepared to pivot quickly if consumers decided they’d had enough of comfortable flats. But that never happened. Sales have only increased as life has begun to return to normal and 2022 will be the company’s best year to date.

High heels have been a fixture of women’s wear for the last two centuries. Many women felt compelled to wear them to the office (and some workplaces actually mandated them), as well as to fancy events. But there has been pushback, as some women complained about how painful heels are to wear and how they can permanently damage the foot.

There’s also new data revealing that people take women less seriously in the office when they wear heels. To find out how heels really affect women’s careers, University of North Carolina professor Sreedhari Desai and her team conducted a series of studies looking at how people evaluated women in a variety of work settings. These scenarios included leading a class, giving a presentation, interviewing for a job, and taking part in a negotiation, with the only variable being whether the woman was wearing high heels or flats. The results? Women wearing flats were deemed more capable and prepared, and earned higher evaluations from both men and women in their 20s through their 50s.

Nevertheless, high heels carry mystique, and many women associate them with happy times. July sales data from NPD Research suggests that heels are making a slight comeback from their lowest point in the pandemic, when sales plummeted by 71%. But personal stylists and other experts say that women aren’t wearing these heels every day, just for special occasions.

Birdies is counting on heels dying off slowly. But for flats to take their place, Gates believes they need to be carefully adapted to women’s lifestyles. This means they need to be stylish and professional enough to wear to the office when necessary. Even Birdies’ sneakers are being designed to be slightly more formal and fashion-forward enough to wear to work and events. There’s a shiny gold pair that works with party dresses and suits. Oh, my!

Thank you Birdies for taking care of the next generation’s feet.

Peg DeMarco is a Morganton resident who writes a weekly features column for The News Herald. Contact her at pegdemarco@earthlink.net.

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