Fashion

Jennifer Lopez Wore a $54,000 Bag With the Debatable Summer Sandals Amal Clooney Is Bringing Back

We haven’t seen Lopez in these shoes since the early 2000s.

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Updated on August 9, 2022 @ 12:52PM

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The other day I went into the archives of my life — aka Facebook photo albums — and found a photo of me in college, lying on the grass outside of my friend's dorm, a pair of cork wedge sandals clutched in my hands. I used to love those shoes and was inspired to buy them after watching an episode of Gossip Girl where Blair Waldorf wears a pair by Michael Kors. My love for the sandals, though, really started in 2002 when Jennifer Lopez wore them (complete with tiny shorts and an oversized hat) in the "I'm Gonna be Alright" music video.

The shoes were one of the sexiest styles of the early 2000s, but they've since fallen out of favor. Maybe it was Snooki constantly tripping while wearing them in Jersey Shore, or just the simple fact that cork reminds too many people of opening up a bottle of wine. Regardless, they couldn't be more different than another shoe of the summer: the Adidas Samba. Unlike Sambas, cork wedges aren't particularly easy to walk in, they've never been worn by soccer players, and they've yet to become part of Bella Hadid's footwear rotation. But they are unexpected, underrated, and apparently on the up-and-up.

Jennifer Lopez has been wearing cork wedges while honeymooning in Capri, and Amal Clooney also recently wore them on vacation while out to dinner with George Clooney in the south of France. I, too, have found myself gravitating more towards cork wedges because I notoriously cannot resist a platform — and there's something about how rarely I see the shoes that's making me fall in love with them all over again.

Lopez styled her Gucci pair with a floral-print poplin dress and an Hermes Kelly wicker bag that typically retails for around $54,000. Amal Clooney wore hers with a cut-out Emilio Pucci dress and a pair of oversized Max Mara sunglasses. As for me, the last time I wore cork wedges was with a bandage dress and a red solo cup. But this time around, I'm going with a simple vintage slip dress and an oversized bag, which has become my go-to summer uniform that I'm now realizing was only missing a pair of these debatable, unfairly forgotten sandals.

Shop the unexpected comeback trend, below.