North West Wears Balenciaga’s Meme-Worthy HardCrocs

Is there any piece from creative director Demna’s time at the helm of Balenciaga that Kim Kardashian hasn’t worn at this point? Surprisingly, yes—but apparently eldest daughter North West is here to pick up the slack in that department. The 9-year-old was spotted out in Paris this morning alongside her mother in one of the more talked-about Balenciaga pieces in recent memory: the epic Balenciaga HardCroc, a platform Croc sandal featuring metal hardware adorning the soles (they retail for a cool $950).

The meme-worthy footwear debuted earlier this year when actor Elliot Page wore them on Balenciaga’s red-carpet-cum-runway that hosted the debut of the spring 2022 collection. Surprisingly neither Kim Kardashian nor North’s dad, Kanye West, have been spotted in the shoe so far.

Still, the mega-Croc wasn’t the only notable part of North’s outfit. Her jacket, it seems, once belonged to West himself. He was spotted in the same one back at the 2008 Billboard Music Awards—which would make sense, considering it comes from the near-mythical streetwear brand Pastelle, which West himself founded before turning his attention to Yeezy. According to Hypebeast, West was hard at work planning the launch for Pastelle back in the late 2000s. Virgil Abloh was part of the creative team, while Kim Jones, now the designer at Dior menswear and Fendi womenswear, was brought in as a consultant. The project was ultimately scrapped after West’s now-infamous 2009 outburst at the MTV Video Music Awards in the middle of Taylor Swift’s speech. The original iteration of Yeezy, a collaboration with Nike, would debut that year, but the brand didn’t become a full line until 2015.

The blue and red jacket was one of the few pieces from the shuttered brand the public ever saw. And apparently, it’s since been passed down to North.