Amy Winehouse’s ballet flats live rent free in our head.
I was sitting, thinking about Paris as one does, when I went down a rabbit hole of all the thrillingly chic spots to shop little leather ballet flats in the city. Naturally, Amy Winehouse popped into my head. She was an icon for many reasons; and in my mind she doesn’t get enough credit for her raw authenticity and the way she wore things. Much like Jane Birkin and her namesake bag, Amy Winehouse really wore her flats into the ground until they were covered in dirt, flattened and literally bloodied. They morphed to her feet and quite literally became an extension of her and her style. Ballet flats are one of those items that have strong prim and proper connotations, but there was nothing precious about how Amy Winehouse wore hers. They were her fashion workhorses.
So anyway, I felt an extremely strong, gravitational pull to search for her ballet flats online. This is often how I find my best, rarest pieces. I manifested my Vivienne Westwood snail brooch the exact same way. And there they were: allegedly, Amy Winehouse’s personal, destroyed ballet flats are actually available for purchase right now on eBay for $10,000 or best offer. Not cheap by any means, but also not obscenely expensive in the realm of archival vintage in 2026.
Earlier this year, an article came out about how a pair of historic, beautifully wounded ballet flats from the personal wardrobe of Amy Winehouse live in the collection of Ankara-based collector Özgür Çift, who purchased them for $3,900 at an auction in Los Angeles. According to the article, “the shoes, marked with traces of blood, have drawn attention in the collectibles world due to their backstory, which later involved a legal dispute between the singer’s father, Mitch Winehouse and her stylists, as well as their historical significance and monetary value.”
Amy Winehouse owned multiple pairs of ballet flats so it’s unclear if this pair is the same one owned by Çift. The eBay seller doesn’t give information on how the shoes were acquired but says they’re selling multiple items from her estate. Would you wear these?
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