In Defense of Justin Bieber Wearing Slippers Outside

published 6 July 2018

If summer is for comfort and 2018 is for saying, “You know what? Screw it,” the perfect nexus of those two things is Justin Bieber wearing hotel slippers outside. In this TED Talk, I will explain how wearing white slippers with socks is not, as is the popular opinion, a bad look, but is actually good.

Bieber hit the streets of New York City this week in the bold look—note the slippers and socks combo, perfect for both an indoor-to-outdoor transition and adopting me as your grandchild—while holding hands with rumored paramour Hailey Baldwin. The Cut dubbed this look “bathleisure.” I dub it, “It’s 2018! Do what you want, bb!”

Bieber is extremely rich, so it’s kind of reassuring to know that he’s chosen to spend his time beta-testing the perfect method for pulling off high-fashion free hotel slippers.

It’s a killer comfort combo, and considerably more sanitary than when Britney Spears went barefoot into a gas station (something I still think about every time I go to a gas station).

This isn’t Bieber’s first foray onto the frontier of Wearing Hotel Slippers Outside. He was clocked rocking a pair soft-bottomed beauties in the streets of New York last summer, too. People had opinions then, but it turned out they were living in 2017 and Bieber was already living in 2018. Now that we’ve caught up to him, let’s take a minute to celebrate this look. Is it attractive to behold? Certainly not. But Bieber has been looking like he was peeled off the bottom of a boat for awhile now, and what with the world being as it is (see: kind of bleak), let’s all agree to live and let live.

You keep wearing your hotel slippers outside, Justin. Maybe I’ll even join you in this brave new world.

Cady has been a writer and editor in Brooklyn for about 10 years. While her earlier career focused primarily on culture and music, her stories—both those she edited and those she wrote—over the last few years have tended to focus on environmentalism, reproductive rights, and feminist issues. She primarily contributes as a freelancer journalist on these subjects while pursuing her degrees. She held staff positions working in both print and online media, at Rolling Stone and Newsweek, and continued this work as a senior editor, first at Glamour until 2018, and then at Marie Claire magazine. She received her Master's in Environmental Conservation Education at New York University in 2021, and is now working toward her JF and Environmental Law Certificate at Elisabeth Haub School of Law in White Plains.

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