The grown-up guide to getting ‘balletcore’ right

It’s trending on TikTok and everywhere on the catwalk – but how do grown women like me pull off dressing like a girl at a ballet class, asks Olivia Petter. When a hot designer does a cool new collaboration with the New York Ballet, that’s how…

Pirouette your way into gorgeously girly outfits this autumn (HBO/Reformation/Getty)

Fashion, as everyone knows, moves in cycles. Neon from the Eighties. Flares from the Seventies. And just about everything from the Nineties. All of these trends have made resurgences on the runways long since their heydays. What’s rarer, though, is when the sartorial zeitgeist stretches right back into our childhoods, tapping into something we’d typically associate with girls as young as three. And yet, here we are: bang smack in the era of balletcore, an aesthetic predicated on the clothing I, along with many other millennial women, wore to weekly ballet classes as a toddler.

But it’s not as weird as it sounds, I promise. Think elevated takes on tulle tutus, with longer hemlines and slimmer skirts, and new twists on leotards by way of lace bodysuits and corsets worn over long-sleeved tops. And then, of course, there are the shoes – a welcome back from the Noughties, ballet flats.

This season, we’ve seen balletcore dominating both on and off the catwalk. Ballet flats took a starring role everywhere from Molly Goddard and Ashley Williams to Ganni and Loewe, where they were covered in diamante sparkles. They’ve been a hot choice among the street style set, too, with regular appearances coming from the Prada mesh ballet flats, the Alaïa crystal-embellished ones, and of course, the now-infamous Maison Margiela tabis.