An Instagram Star Shows How to Style One of Spring’s Biggest Shoe Revivals for Fall

Of course, a quick glance at the Instagram feed of Amy Sall, Columbia University MA graduate and founder of the forthcoming African affairs, critical thought, and aesthetics journal Sunu, would suggest that the shoe could just as easily be worn in these mercurial days of early fall. Flitting around the city with a chic sense of ease, the Senegalese-American, whose polished personal style is a combination of sleek separates awash in neutrals, has made the African slipper a personal wardrobe staple. Having seen generations of men in her family don the shoe for prayer or Senegalese holidays, Sall began to reinterpret the babouche for her own modern closet while paying homage to her cultural roots.

Photo: Courtesy of Amy Sall / @amy_sall
“I’m wearing them right now!” she says during a recent phone call. “You can make the babouche as casual and as dressed up as you want. It’s all about how you put your look together. I’m running around the city and I need to be comfortable; I cannot do the ‘fashion over function’ thing. If it’s not comfortable, that shows and it detracts from your elegance, your look. If you appear uncomfortable, your whole look is done.”