Rihanna Wore Balenciaga Knife Boots and Leggings in New York

Posted by Almeda Bohannan on Friday, May 3, 2024

Being a celebrity brings comes with the great responsibility of heralding hugely impractical fashion trends: the naked dress and its accompanying reams of boob tape, the 10-gallon gown that requires its own pallbearers, teeny-tiny baby bags that don't actually fit anything (though one's security detail can double as a purse). And 2022's prevailing celebrity trend might just unseat the lot as the most ridiculous, barely wearable style of them all.

Pant-boots, or boot-pants, or joots (jean-boots) have become the go-to all-in-one bottoms of celebrities who have committed to the bit. Kim Kardashian and Julia Fox are both recent wearers, sparking speculation that the garment's popularity can be attributed to Kanye West, known stylist to his romantic partners. But Rihanna's latest outfit from an outing this week in New York City, which featured a shiny, skin-tight leggings style of the boots (loots?), shows that the movement's reach is far more vast than we thought.

Just consider for a moment all of the inefficiencies of the poot. It may be tempting to see the two-fer as a time-saving solution — just pull them on and go, right? — but actually, they're a logistical nightmare. How exactly does one go about washing a poot? And were the trend to transcend the celebrity bubble, can you imagine the enormous range of sizes that would have to be available to account for the incalculable combinations of shoe size, waist size, and inseam needed to serve the general public? (This is no time for algebra.) It's no wonder Julia Fox took a pair of scissors to her joots after just one day of wearing them, reducing them to far more pedestrian pieces than the sum of their parts.

To be fair, Rihanna's recent loots appear to be a pair of Balenciaga Knife Boots combined with a separate pair of leggings in a near-identical stretch fabric, thereby assuaging some of our anxieties. Still, her apparent cosign of the trend is bound to only make matters worse given how helpless we, as a society, are to resisting her influence. We may all soon be shopping for our own joots, poots, and loots at Nordstrom or Italist (they may be the one thing not included in its vast end-of-season sale).

Until then, we'll stick with some flattering (albeit comparatively mundane) leggings and stretchy fabric shoes to wear together á la Rih below.

Get the Look:

Dream Pairs Women's Thigh High Boots
Shop now: $49; amazon.com

Steve Madden Women's Claire Fashion Boot
Shop now: $100; amazon.com

Aldo Women's Adwigocia Ankle Boot
Shop now: $60; amazon.com

Hbeylia Platform Thigh High Boots
Shop now: $30; amazon.com

Vivianly Women's Platform Boots
Shop now: $51; amazon.com

Colorfulkoala Women's Buttery Soft High Waisted Leggings
Shop now: $23; amazon.com

Fullsoft 3 Pack Womens Leggings
Shop now: $25; amazon.com

Amazon Essentials Women's Active Legging
Shop now: $18; amazon.com

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