No, Not Ballet Flats: Anya Taylor-Joy Revives 2005 Denim Styling With This Throwback Heel Style

Just wait until Jonathan Anderson sees this...

Anya Taylor-Joy attended a Paris Fashion Week event in fresh-off-the-runway Dior, cuffed jeans, and pointy black pumps
(Image credit: Getty Images)

At Dior's Fall 2026 fashion show, jeans were long enough to graze the runway. One day later on the streets of Paris, Anya Taylor-Joy decided her pair needed some early-2000s styling in addition to a Dior jacket pulled straight from the show.

Instead of your average goody bag, it seems creative director Jonathan Anderson sent Taylor-Joy home with a brocade Dior coat. Of course, she wasted no time sharing its shearling-lined, peplum hem with Paris's street style scene. Just like the model, Taylor-Joy styled it as a top over her spring denim. From the waist down, however, the Dune actor took creative liberties.

She traded Dior's crystal-scalloped jeans for a cuffed, rhinestone-free pair. Rolling up each hem a few inches showcased pointy black pumps: a retro replacement for the Dior collection's suede ankle boots, and a bat signal for millennials to dust off their own classic black heels.

Anya Taylor-Joy attended a Paris Fashion Week event in fresh-off-the-runway Dior, cuffed jeans, and pointy black pumps

Anya Taylor-Joy tackles the cuffed jeans trend with classic black pumps.

(Image credit: Backgrid)

A model wore Anya Taylor-Joy's jacket in the Dior Fall 2026 show

See her brocade coat on the Dior Fall 2026 runway just hours ago.

(Image credit: Launchmetrics)

Senior fashion news editor Halie LeSavage immediately flagged Taylor-Joy's endorsement of this era-defining duo for Millennials: cuffed jeans and black pumps. No one could escape its grasp back in the day (the day being 2005 to 2010), not even Tracee Ellis Ross, Katie Holmes, or Lauren Conrad. Ross, for one, brought the set as her plus-one to Proenza Schouler's Fall 2005 show. She rolled her jeans up so high, they bordered on capris.

By 2008, Conrad and Holmes's denim got the black pumps treatment. The former preferred skinny jeans, while the latter's pants and heels matched each other's bulkiness. Fast forward to 2013, and Selena Gomez rarely took off her black Christian Louboutins and rolled-up jeans. Needless to say? It was a right of passage for early- and mid-aughts It girls.

Tracee Ellis Ross wearing black pumps with cuffed jeans

Tracee Ellis Ross tried cuffed jeans and black heels as early as 2005.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Katie Holmes wearing cuffed jeans with black pumps in 2008

Katie Holmes followed suit three years later.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Lauren Conrad wearing black pumps with cuffed jeans

Once Lauren Conrad approved, it was a bona fide formula.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Cuffed jeans and black pumps aren't so much a trend as a blast to the past. Plus, by simply unrolling each hem, the look instantly transforms from nostalgic to classically French. (Unless you wear them with high-vamp flats like Kendall Jenner, that's a different story.) But stay tuned. They could reach trend-revival status before you can say Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County.

Shop Cuffed Jeans and Black Pumps Inspired by Anya Taylor-Joy

Meguire Hennes
Staff Writer, Fashion

Meguire Hennes is the fashion staff writer at Marie Claire, where she breaks down the celebrity looks living rent-free in her head (and yours). Whether a star is walking the red carpet or posing on Instagram, Meguire will tell you who they're wearing and why. When she's not gushing about A-listers from J.Law to Rihanna, Meguire also covers breaking industry news.

Previously, Meguire was the fashion news writer at The Zoe Report. She received a bachelor's degree in fashion studies at Montclair State University, and has freelanced at Bustle, Women's Health, Well+Good, and more. You can find her words across the fashion, beauty, health, and wellness verticals, because her Libra moon wouldn't let her settle on one beat. Follow her on Instagram for BTS moments from her Marie Claire era.