Does Not Like Shoes

Shakira and her "trademark" Pies Descalzos[1]


"Shoes? No, I can certainly afford them; I go barefoot for comfort."
—Ryu (win quote), Street Fighter IV

For some reason, this character tries to avoid wearing shoes whenever possible. May be because the character has some kind of mystical connection with the ground she walks on/ Wild Child status. This can also be a sign of heroism and badassery, like a milder form of Full-Frontal Assault; the Nature Hero and Barbarian Hero are most prone to it. Bridging Wild Child and Nature Hero, the Noble Savage and Jungle Princess are virtually always barefoot.

This is also sometimes a sign of youthful innocence, and many of the characters who demonstrate this trope are either children or childlike. It can also be a sign of eccentricity or absentmindedness; Bunny Ears Lawyers and Cloudcuckoolanders may go barefoot in public because they are either flouting societal conventions or are simply oblivious to them. Some do it because they're poor, though the trait may be kept even after reaching a better station. Some people do it because they find shoes uncomfortable, some people because they feel it gives them a greater awareness of or a connection to their surroundings, while some people do simply because it's something interesting or fun to do as part of their personal image, or any combination of the above.

Quite definitely Truth in Television. In Real Life, many go barefoot because they simply find it more comfortable than wearing shoes. This is backed up by an increasing amount of research, particularly on running, that not wearing shoes can dramatically reduce injury rates, while both barefooting and the use of minimalist shoes are steadily growing in various types of running. And, intuitively, if your feet smell or feel less pained upon taking off your shoes, you have to figure your body was in need of a little barefoot time.

It may be easier for some in a rural area, as urban sidewalks and roads are quite abrasive to bare feet. And that's not limited to humans: horseshoes exist for the same reason. It also varies by region; some countries are more barefoot-friendly than others (Australia, for instance). In some parts of the world, it's even common for children to attend school barefoot, and not just in poverty-stricken countries where shoes are rare.

Finally, sometimes it's just because a character's feet are unusually large or a funny shape.

Compare Foot Focus (when a TV show or movie shows frequent close-up shots of bare feet, usually as Fetish Fuel or for Author Appeal—both, if you're Quentin Tarantino).

Contrast All Women Love Shoes and Barefoot Poverty. Furries have a tendency to be unshod, leading to a society of Barefoot Cartoon Animals, unless they're The One Who Wears Shoes.

Examples of Does Not Like Shoes include:

Anime & Manga

  • Ed from Cowboy Bebop loses all balance if she even puts on socks.
  • Maria from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei has the same balance problem with socks and panties . Kiri is also a barefooter; panty-state is unknown, as is her dexterity.
  • L from Death Note.
    • Near also has a strong distaste for shoes, but still wears socks. Sole exception: in the manga, he's barefoot during the sequence in Roger Ruvie's office when he and Mello make their first appearance, but in the anime version of the scene he's wearing his trademark socks.
  • Bleach has a few:
    • Although she wears shoes in flashbacks, Nel now travels everywhere barefoot.
    • In the third film Fade to Black, the anime makes Rukia barefoot for her evil phase. In the manga, she completely averts the trope, only falling under Barefoot Poverty in flashbacks.
  • Shion from Kekkaishi wears this strange outfit that shows not only her bare feet, but her bellybutton, too.
  • Momoko from Sumomo Mo Momo Mo stays perpetually barefoot throughout most of the series, even during school and public outings, emphasizing her life-long martial artist training.
  • Most underwater citizens from Umi Monogatari, including the two main characters, will go barefoot, unless trying to remain inconspicuous and wearing more conventional clothes of the "sky people" (land-faring humans).
  • Kotomi from Clannad doffs her shoes frequently, most likely to remind us of her Cloudcuckoolander status.
  • Ranma ½
    • Sôun Tendô and Genma Saotome are constantly shoeless, which is fitting enough considering they are almost always dressed in martial arts uniforms. Of the two, only Sôun has the sense to wear geta when going out to the street. Early manga and anime at least showed Genma (in panda form) wiping his feet with a washcloth before coming into the house again.
    • The show's title character also tends to have a rather convenient disregard for footwear. Particularly, when changing into a girl, the male-size shoes no longer fit on her smaller female feet, so either she has to carry them around in her hand or simply chucks them if she can't be bothered.
    • Tatewaki Kunô is shoeless too whenever wearing his traditional kendo uniform—that is, most of the time.
  • Soul Eater
    • Medusa is another barefooter, except when she's in disguise. This has become such a central motif that her influence is signaled by disregarded shoes at least once.
    • As is Excalibur, who's much more the Cloudcuckoolander type than Medusa. Then again, he's also sort of a Funny Animal.
  • About 70% of the characters found in Inuyasha are barefoot, including:
    • Inu-Yasha himself. Being a dog demon, as well as Badass, he doesn't really need 'em.
    • Most villagers; especially the female ones, assuming because they're too poor to afford any sandals.
    • Rin, a young village girl picked up by Sesshoumaru travels barefoot anywhere, including in the snow without much of a problem.
    • Kagura, the wind sorceresses, is the very epitome of this trope (as well as Foot Focus), seeing as she wears extremely elaborate, expensive-looking kimonos yet is perpetually barefoot no matter the conditions. It possibly qualifies her as a Badass.
    • Also Koga, the wolf demon, though that's probably due to his animal nature. Not to mention the rest of his packmates.
  • The characters of RG Veda hate shoes so much, they'll happily traverse solid-frozen, snow-peaked mountains barefoot.
  • Kaolla Su from Love Hina, and her older sister, Amalla.
  • Coco, King Faust's perpetually barefoot Perky Female Minion [2] in Fairy Tail.
  • Evangeline from Mahou Sensei Negima ditches her shoes whenever she's inside, unless she's in class.
  • Futaba from Mitsudomoe always goes around barefoot. No-one seems to notice that.
  • Miyu from Vampire Princess Miyu is always barefoot when she goes Shinma hunting.
  • The townspeople in Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu rarely wear shoes. Weda wears sneakers when she goes hunting, but that's about it. Hare lampshades this when he points out to Guu that the school's shoe lockers never get any use.
  • Tomoe, Little Bit Beastly White-Haired Pretty Boy Kitsune from Kamisama Kiss, always goes around barefooted when he's not posing as a human.
  • A few characters in One Piece, both male (Like Franky) and female (Like Aisa), go barefoot.
  • Ringo, the Genki Girl Cheerful Child from Casshern Sins.


Comic Books

  • Mara, a perpetually barefoot Celtic shamaness created by Dennis McClain, lives and breathes this trope. In fact, this entire comic lives and breathes a dozen Fetishes, so such Foot Focus is not out of place.
  • Julie Winters of The Maxx, in both the original comic and the Animated Adaptation. She doesn't seem to have any particular aversion to shoes, but she definitely prefers going barefoot (even while walking the city streets and alleys). She does it often enough that, if you can't see her feet, and she hasn't been explicitly shown earlier to be wearing shoes, you can assume she's barefoot.
  • Tia Dalma is barefoot in the comics Pirates of the Caribbean (based on movie series of the same name).
    • The movies do not show her feet at all, so she could be barefoot in them as well.
    • In fact, lots of POTC fanfics describe her that way: one, two and many others.
  • Both Swift and Jack Hawksmoor of Stormwatch and The Authority rarely wear shoes, as she has flight powers and the ability to turn her feet into bird-like talons, and he has powers derived from urban environments and needs to stay in skin contact with the ground or buildings.
  • Cynthia Reynolds, a.k.a. Gypsy of the Justice League of America, happily walks the streets of Detroit wearing nothing but a few anklets and toe rings on her feet. It makes sense, since gypsies (in fiction at least) always seem to be barefoot—especially hot gypsy women.
  • Oracle and other Kandrakar inhabitants in WITCH (some pictures even show Wee clinging to Oracle's bare foot). Orube is also barefoot when in her warrior outfit.
  • Beast from the X-Men wears neither boots nor gloves due to his hands and feet being abnormally big. This was clearer when he was human. Human Hank certainly owned shoes in his big size, but he went barefoot when in costume because having ape-like prehensile toes was a major part of his abilities. After he became blue and furry, he stopped bothering with shoes even when in his civvies. Adversely, after his mutation progressed to a more feline-like stage and his hind legs became retrograde, he started wearing special shoes sometimes, even though this seems to make less sense than ever.
  • Plastic Man is always barefoot, even though he has no toes, and thus looks like he's wearing flesh-colored tights. It emphasizes his amorphous nature. He's been known to stretch his toes for escape attempts.
  • Many of the characters (female and male) in Love and Rockets go barefoot on a regular basis. This isn't culturally unusual in the romantically rural "Palomar/BEM" saga, but can seem that way in the urban/SF settings of the "Los Locas/Mechanics", "Runaway Rikki" and "Love & Rockets" storylines.
  • The Incredible Hulk, as his feet are not only too big, but change in size with the rest of him depending on his anger level.
  • She Hulk can follow the same trope, but it depends on the writer.
  • The Thing from Fantastic Four has always been barefoot up until the 2000s, when he started wearing boots and trousers.
  • Delirium from The Sandman rarely wears shoes. In Brief Lives she wears what looks like a pair of Doc Martens with one outfit and spends the rest of the arc barefoot.
  • Meggan from Excalibur.
  • Jinx, of the Fearsome Five and Villainy Inc., is perpetually barefoot. This is because her powers are tied to her contact with the earth at her feet. As she can be disabled by simply lifting her from the ground, imagine what shoes would do to her magic.
  • During the 60s, characters in Archie Comics went barefoot all the time, and not just at the beach or around the house. Check out any issue from this time period and you'll just about always find two or three characters who seemingly left their house without putting any shoes on. And every now and then, it would even be a central element.
  • Like many hot gypsy women, Mejai of Le Scorpion goes barefoot frequently.
  • Tanga, an alien super heroine created by Kevin Maguire, always goes barefoot and says that she's "not a big fan" of shoes, although she understands that some people are. (Technically speaking she's not barefoot since she wears a full-body suit - but she does not wear shoes, and the covers usually depict her as barefoot.)

Comic Strips

  • The title character from the comic panel Ziggy seems to go barefoot... although that may be an artistic convention, as he seems to be the only person in the panel with his character design.


Fan Works

  • This fanfic describes Angela from Eragon this way. Not surprising, since it focuses on her Cloudcuckoolander personality.
  • Terra Caldwell from Convergent Paths (a Pokémon fanfic) is sometimes barefoot and sometimes in pantyhose, but never wears shoes. She is a "Mother Earth" character who likes meditating.
    • Lampshaded in chapter 62, where Daniel specially mentions her "strange aversion to shoes".
  • Aki, Shinji and Asuka's daughter in the Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfic, The Second Try and its sequel, Aki Chans Life. Said character is an absolutely Adorable little 4-year old who inherited her mother's stubbornness, to the point her parents gave up on trying to make her wear shoes.


Films -- Animation

  • Many Disney characters go barefoot.
    • Aladdin. Even after the first movie, Aladdin still wears that old clothing of his. By the third movie however he starts wearing shoes with his old clothing.
    • Tarzan, not surprisingly, given that Tarzan lives in the jungle and is pretty much a case of "Does Not Wear Clothes". Shortly after meeting him, Jane ditches her shoes and becomes a barefooter as well.
    • Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame wore shoes in Hugo's novel (though her outfit was "tinsel and rags,") but goes barefoot in the Disney Animated Canon version, though she inexplicably gained shoes in the sequel.
    • Kida in Atlantis the Lost Empire. Like Esmeralda, she ended up wearing shoes in the sequel. Also, Word of God actually confirmed that Kida was actually wearing Greco-Roman-style sandals at the end of the first film (they are hidden underneath her dress, and are the same shade of tan as her skin, but darker).
    • The title character in Pocahontas. And yes, she too ended up wearing shoes in the sequel (and at the theme parks, along with the two mentioned above).
    • Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, at least as humble peasant girl "Briar Rose." When she gets her princess outfit and goes to the palace, then she's got shoes.
    • Giselle in Enchanted, though only in the animated segments. Possibly a direct reference to Aurora.
    • Once she gets feet, Ariel in The Little Mermaid goes barefoot more often than she wears shoes. Her daughter Melody in the sequel is a dedicated barefooter, only wearing shoes when she's forced to.
    • Rapunzel in Tangled. Of the youthful innocence variety—plus she's just never needed shoes due to never leaving her tower. Coincidentally, Rapunzel's voice actress, Mandy Moore, goes barefoot a lot in Real Life.
    • Mowgli from The Jungle Book.
    • Lilo from Liloand Stitch, who either prefers to be barefoot or wear sandals.
    • Mama Odie from The Princess and the Frog.
    • Ralph from Wreck-It Ralph does not appear to wear shoes.


Films -- Live-Action

  • The Na'vi in Avatar are perpetually barefoot. Fridge Brilliance also comes into play: Given the moon's lower gravity, and denser atmosphere, it's extremely easy to lose footing and slip—especially on dirt or soil. Cause of this, the Na'vi are able to curl their large toes directly into the ground for traction. The other lifeforms also partially compensate for the lower gravity and thicker atmosphere by having an additional pair of arms/legs.
  • In the 1939 film The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck says, "Shoes and I don't get along."
  • The title character of the Tammy film series carries her shoes with her, telling people, "You don't have to wear fancy shoes to let people know you've got them."
  • Inverted with Brendan Fraser's character, George of the Jungle. He tends to go barefoot in the jungle, but for a cross-country running montage, he pulls out a pair of Nikes. Parody? Shameless Product Placement? You decide.
  • In many Hamlet adaptations (1964, 1990, 1996, etc.) Ophelia is barefoot in the mad scenes.
    • In the David Tennant version, Hamlet himself is barefoot a lot of the time, including while he is wearing a tuxedo.
  • An unusual negative example is Spectre, a Quirky Town in Big Fish. The entire population goes barefoot, and visitors' shoes are stolen so they can't leave town.
  • Agador/Spartacus, the houseboy in La Cage aux Folles (and its American remake The Birdcage), does not wear shoes because if he wears them he falls down. Armand scoffs at this, but it turns out he is telling the truth.
  • In Sex Drive, Felicia Alpine (Amanda Crew) tosses her shoes up into a tree, proclaims, "I was born barefoot!" and remains that way for pretty much the rest of the film (not always to her comfort).
  • In the '70s rednecksploitation flick Gator Bait, Wild Child Desiree remains barefoot throughout the film, climbing through trees and running through swamps with ease.
  • Another case is Simone Griffeth as Janeen in Swamp Girl, a similar film from 1971.
  • The entire civilization of Bedrock in The Flintstones. No-one wears pants, either. The men wear long shirts and the women wear either skirts or dresses. (Except when in bathing suits.)
  • Some versions of Dracula have his brides go barefoot, probably to add to their sex appeal. And to make it tougher for them to run away from the castle.
  • Ditto that for the vampire films of French director Jean Rollin. Most of the female characters in his films go barefoot at least once, and many—like The Living Dead Girl—remain barefoot for the duration.
  • Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction tends to take off her shoes whenever she can get away with it in the film. What do you expect when famed foot-lover Quentin Tarantino is writer-director?
  • Ava Gardner in The Barefoot Contessa could practically be the trope namer. Her character goes from poor peasant girl to internationally famous actress, but never loses her love of going barefoot. When a statue is commissioned of her, she insists on posing for it barefoot, and at the end of the movie, after her husband murders her, Humphrey Bogart's character removes her shoes to bring her soul some peace.
    • Gardner was quite fond of going barefoot in real life; reportedly, she was disappointed to find out that the character wore shoes in a few scenes.
  • In A Piedi Nudi, an Italian short film, a schoolgirl, after seeing another girl's shoes being stolen by a group of bullies, gives the victimized girl her own shoes to walk home in. She herself walks home barefoot, and ends up liking it so much that she decides to attend school barefoot the very next day, and stays that way the entire day despite the taunts of her classmates.
  • Nancy Kwan is barefoot for the duration of Lt. Robin Crusoe USN and has several scenes in "Tamahine" without any shoes as well.
  • Lori Saunders in Mara of the Wilderness.
  • Rynn, the title character in The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. Interestingly, Jodie Foster, the actress who played Rynn, did and still does have that same trait.
  • Foster spends a vast majority of Panic Room barefoot as well; she's wearing shoes for maybe the first 15 minutes and that's it.
  • Kim Novak's character in the 1950's classic Bell, Book, and Candle is barefoot in just about every indoor scene; at one point in the movie, an old classmate claims that she came to college that way (until said classmate ratted her out to the dean, earning herself a fantastic curse in retribution).
  • The heroine of That Lady in Ermine is a ghost in a painting of her in an ermine coat and bare feet (done for a symbolic move when she was alive). She spends most of the film in this outfit, and therefore barefoot, save for one scene.
  • Eli in Let the Right One In doesn't wear shoes as a rule, even when in the snow. Of course, she's a vampire and as she explains to Oskar she doesn't get cold. As well, not wearing shoes makes it easier for her to climbs things like trees and walls.
  • The main character of the German movie Barfuß (Barefoot).
  • Alma Brown (Patricia Neal) in Hud fits. She claims to have worn shoes only once, at her wedding.
  • Painfully inverted with John McClane in Die Hard. He even tries the terrorist's on but they don't fit.
  • Both times Pepper Potts is shown in Stark Tower during The Avengers, she is barefoot. Of course, it was directed by Joss Whedon...
  • In It Could Happen To You, Judy Holliday's character absent-mindedly kicked off her shoes whenever she had to do some serious thinking.
  • Agador in The Birdcage can barely stand up when he has to wear shoes.


Literature

  • Tahiri Veila from the Star Wars Expanded Universe due to being raised by Sand People and liking the cool floors (in contrast to her native planet Tatooine's hot sands).
    • Senator Gaeriel Captison was also fond of removing her shoes and going on barefoot walks in the park in her free time.
    • One of the hats of the Togruta species (like the Jedi Shaak Ti) was that they wouldn't wear shoes for a spiritual connection to the land.
  • Susanne from Miss Temptation by Kurt Vonnegut.
  • Lauren Kline from Marc Levy's If Only It Were True (it may be due to her ghost/angel nature). In one scene, she playfully strokes Artur's leg with her bare foot (since nobody else is able to see and sense her).
  • On a single occasion, Bella Swan from Twilight: before her first hunt, she kicks off her shoes and goes barefoot to the forest.
    • The actress and the character seem to have a lot in common. Along with sharing her characteristic lip-biting, Kristen Stewart also seems to have acquired a habit of walking barefoot, even at otherwise well-dressed occasions.
    • James, Victoria, and Laurent prefer going barefoot so they can run at maximum Super Speed without destroying them.
  • In Robert A. Heinlein's Waldo, Waldo doesn't like shoes because he has lived his entire life being unable to walk, so when he finally is able to do so, he avoids them as they make his feet feel dead. He only makes himself wear them when he has to.
  • Princess Eilonwy from The Chronicles of Prydain apparently enjoys walking barefoot; her "unshod feet" are specially mentioned by Dallben in The Castle of Llyr. And in The Book of Three she only wears light sandals. (Probably related to her extreme informality in general; though a princess, she tends to dress in plain tunics or hard-wearing boys' clothes and is happier in a scullery than a royal court.)
  • Many characters from The Chronicles of Narnia are related to this trope. This includes Coriakin, Ramandu, possibly his daughter, Lucy and some others. Similarly, stars and nymphs are always barefoot.
  • The Lord of the Rings
    • Hobbits don't need shoes because they have unusually tough and leathery soles and fur on top of their feet.
    • Idril of the Silver Feet in JRR Tolkien's The Book of Lost Tales runs around Gondolin barefoot, except during major festivals. It is not mentioned whether she puts on shoes when she puts on armor.
  • From the works of Rudyard Kipling:
    • The Jungle Book has Mowgli, who is at one point taken into a civilized home and shod. He doesn't think much of it, and the shoes are the first to go when he returns to the jungle.
      • The above seems to be a mis-remembering of a scene where Messua (who thinks Mowgli is her long-lost son) asks him if he remembers the shoes she once gave him, but then concedes that his feet are too tough to have ever been shod. Whether he actually wears shoes in the village is open to interpretation, but the usual reading is that he doesn't.
    • In Kim, the title character goes barefoot whenever possible.
  • Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Those kids (particularly Huck) are barefoot whenever possible even if it is against the rules. It was actually common in America in the 1800s for kids (mostly boys but sometimes even girls) to go barefoot most of the summer, but there were still rules about when it was and wasn't appropriate. Huck broke 'em all.
  • Farid from The Inkworld Trilogy grew up in the Middle Eastern desert prior to Inkheart (being a character from The Arabian Nights) and isn't used to wearing shoes. Dustfinger buys him a pair, but he's almost constantly taking them off in favor of going barefoot.
  • Aphrael/Danae in David Eddings' Elenium and Tamuli cycles.
  • Arya Stark of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire prefers to go barefoot unless decorum dictates otherwise. Later in the series, while undergoing assassin training with her Stealth Mentor (who may well be her actual mentor under an assumed identity), she's explicitly told to consider going barefoot because you can be stealthier that way.
  • In Deerskin, Robin McKinley's adaptation of the Brothers Grimm tale "Donkeyskin", protagonist Lissar refuses to wear shoes even when visiting royalty. "I like to know where I'm walking," she says at one point. "In shoes, I'm always walking on shoes."
  • Sam Vimes in the Discworld books is a variation. He dislikes wearing good shoes, for much the same reason Lissar in the example above does—he can navigate around Ankh-Morpork in any weather by the feel of the cobblestones, but naturally he can only do that wearing boots with the soles mostly worn through (or very thin to begin with).
  • Jane Lindskold's Wild Child Firekeeper grows up barefoot, and prefers to stay that way.
  • In Anne Rice's Merrick, there are (quite) a few mentions of the title character's aversion to shoes both as a child and grown up.
  • In the novelization of Dr. No, Honeychile Rider is depicted as a perpetual barefooter and special attention is paid to her toes gripping carpet for the first time.
  • The Adventures of Fox Tayle: Fox Tayle does not wear shoes because his feet are too large.
  • In The Guardians by Meljean Brook, Michael's signature style is to go barefoot, no matter what the rest of his outfit may be. It's later explained that his senses have grown so acute he can feel the vibrations in the ground and know where everyone is. His aversion to shoes is so strong that, when he possesses Taylor, he vanishes her shoes for the same reason. She gets to the point where she doesn't even notice after he leaves.
  • Acorna, the Unicorn Girl, has hoof-like feet and finds human shoes uncomfortable (and unnecessary).
  • Zhirem, from the Tanith Lee novel Death's Master grew up barefoot; and after he has grown up into the powerful (and pretty evil) sorcerer Zhirek, he dresses in rich vestments, but still goes barefoot, as he is used to it. Later on, after he had become the philosopher Dathanja, a kind-hearted princess gave him shoes, "which he even wore sometimes".
  • Denise the camp counselor in Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great. One day Sheila discovers the reason Denise doesn't wear shoes is because the bottoms of her feet are "covered in warts".
  • In the Cross-Time Engineer series, Conrad meets a traveling monk who doesn't wear shoes. He assumes there's something wrong with the man's feet, because they're so leathery and coarse, but in fact they're perfectly normal for someone who's walked hundreds of miles, and disdains shoes as a needless luxury.
  • Mr. Jenkins from the Bailey School Kids series avoided wearing shoes until his cabin was filled with wolfsbane.
  • Molly Grue from The Last Unicorn goes barefoot, apparently by choice; on the other hand, it is mentioned that her feet were 'covered in blisters'.
  • In Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Changeling, Ivy is usually barefoot and (reasonably enough for a tree-climbing dancer) she always tucks her skirt into the legs of her underpants. Martha is used to seeing her this way when they are not in school.
  • Sisterhood series by Fern Michaels: Harry Wong is revealed to be this as early as the book Hide And Seek. He can dig trenches in the ground with those feet. He will wear sandals and will only put on shoes if he really has to.
  • Referred to in Oriana's backstory in the second Dinotopia book, 'The World Beneath'. Oriana tells Arthur that she adapted to wearing shoes, but that she really didn't like them at first because they seperated her feet from the feeling of the grass.
  • Dragon boys (the youths who tend fighting dragons) in the Dragon Jousters series normally go barefoot for practicality. Sandals would just get lost in the dragons' sand pits. But since the series is set in an Egypt-Expy, being barefoot doesn't really stand out.
  • O. Henry's Cabbages And Kings has one chapter where a shoe merchant tries to do business in a Banana Republic town where no one likes shoes. The solution was some prickly burrs he had to mail-order from back in the USA.


Live-Action TV

"Did you ever have shoes on in this?"

    • For the record, she does: heavy motorcycle boots that contrast with her delicate dresses. Summer Glau even mentions this.
  • Adam from Northern Exposure.
  • Bit of a running gag in Dane Cook's routine.
  • In The Outer Limits episode "The Bellero Shield", Mrs. Dame goes barefoot throughout the story.
  • In Victorious, Sikowitz is almost always barefoot.
  • In both The Real World and Big Brother, the housemates go barefoot for a majority of the time. This probably isn't surprising given that people in general tend to go barefoot in their homes.
  • Ocean Girl 's Neri, Mera and Kal all went barefoot. The first few times Neri went o ORCA, the others made her wear shoes, which she hated. By the fourth season she was barefoot even when horse riding; Jason handwaved it at one point.
  • In Shaka Zulu young Shaka demonstates his lack of need for army sandals by grinding out a flaming stick with his foot while sneering contemptuously.
  • Kwai Chang Caine from Kung Fu. One of the only times in the series that he wears footwear was to attend a wedding.


Tabletop Games

  • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay have several species who don't wear shoes:
    • Halflings, for the same reason as Tolkien's hobbits. Their feet are hairy and leathery.
    • Jade (and amber) wizards often chose not to wear shoes, as they are extremely in tune with nature (or beasts).
    • Beastmen have hooves, and no horseshoes.
    • Many Orcs and Goblins also go without shoes, particularly the "jungle native"-styled Savage Orcs and Forest Goblins.
  • Warhammer 40,000
    • Ratlings, Halflings IN SPACE, also occasionally go barefoot.
    • Some Imperial preachers also go barefoot as part of their mendicant lifestyle.
    • As of the latest codex, several Dark Eldar now go barefoot on the battlefield, including the Mandrakes (who are living shadows), some Hellions (who ride flying, bladed hoverboards) and Scourges (who have wings), Urien Rakarth and the other Haemonculi (who float around using suspensors), and Lelith Hesperax (who is just Badass).
    • Tau don't wear shoes, although with them it's more a case of "bare-hoof" than "bare-foot". Their allies, the Kroot, don't wear shoes either, but then, they don't wear anything.
  • The Tharn in the Iron Kingdoms fantasy setting don't wear shoes, in keeping with their bestial nature.
  • Originally played straight with halflings in Dungeons & Dragons (as they started out as a fairly direct hobbit-ersatz). Averted in 3e, where halflings are no more or less likely to wear shoes than anyone else.
    • In 3e, a fey race called the uldra in the Frostburn supplement and the hobbit-ersatz khesta in a third-party setting called Twin Crowns play it straight.
  • Halflings in Pathfinder are vaguely hobbit-inspired and play the trope straight again.


Music

  • Many performers like to eschew shoes while performing on stage, often to feel more relaxed or to alleviate stage fright. Kelly Clarkson, Lenny Kravitz, Linda Ronstadt, Eric Benet, Tim Minchin, Tristan Prettyman, Delta Goodrem, Amy Grant, Lauren Harris, Charlotte Church, Katharine Mcphee, The White Stripes drummer Meg White, and Porcupine Tree Face of the Band Steven Wilson have all regularly or semi-regularly performed barefoot at some point in their careers.
  • British singer Sandie Shaw tended to go barefoot both on stage and off. Her detractors thought this was a marketing gimmick, but Sandie claimed she did it because she was afraid of tripping over wires.
  • Cesaria Evora was called "the barefoot diva" and recorded a studio album by the same name. This is because she sung in small, local taverns, often appearing barefoot on stage, where there was a stage, until the age of 47 when her international career started. She was quite a literal case of this trope, as she said openly she avoided wearing shoes in everyday life wherever possible.
  • Deana Carter prefers not to wear shoes at all—when filming on a Puerto Rican beach for one music video they had to first make sure there were no needles left lying in the sand and she's seen walking the streets barefoot in the same video (and stopping to remove something sharp). For concerts, she always brings a small rug with her to stand on while on stage.
  • Joss Stone is almost always barefoot on stage and on various outings. She has said that she doesn't wear shoes on stage because she is afraid of slipping and falling.
  • Mandy Moore claims that she usually performs barefoot due to her large feet (she's a size 10) because she has difficulty finding shoes that feel comfortable to perform on stage in.
  • Andrea Corr, the story goes, decided to remove her shoes for a performance in 2001, and liked it much so much that she's done almost all her stage shows barefoot ever since.
  • Michael Franti hasn't worn shoes at all since 2000, although he does wear flip-flops where shoes are required, such as restaurants and on airplanes. He says he's not trying to make a political statement, he just doesn't like shoes.
  • Neil Diamond's "Two Bit Manchild" contains the line "Ain't got no eye for a tight pair of shoes when my bare feet'll do."
  • k.d. lang was noticeably shoeless while singing Hallelujah at the 2005 Juno Awards.
  • Paul McCartney of The Beatles doesn't wear shoes if he can help it—he appeared barefoot on the famous cover of Abbey Road and mentions bare feet in "Good Day Sunshine".
  • Shakira, as pictured above, almost always performs barefoot, and even called one of her albums Pies Descalzos (Spanish for "bare feet"). In her biography, Woman Full of Grace, she indicates that being barefoot makes her feel like she has removed the facades from her personality and allowed her true self to shine through.
  • Dave Mackintosh of DragonForce sometimes performs barefoot.
  • Henry Rollins almost never performs with shoes on... in fact, he rarely performs with anything but shorts on. Paul Reiser called attention to this during an award show, thanking Rollins for not tracking mud on the floor.
  • It's not unusual to see a drummer perform in socks or bare feet, to better control the bass pedal; Guitar Hero even suggests this for using the drumset if players are having trouble.
  • Edward Ka-Spel, lead singer of the Legendary Pink Dots, doesn't seem to enjoy wearing shoes onstage.
  • There are some opera singers who like performing barefoot even if it doesn't necessarily fit the role or the director's concept. It may or may not be acting, but Dawn Upshaw, Sylvia McNair, Karita Mattila, and particularly Agnes Baltsa all seem to enjoy performing roles barefoot.
  • Taylor Swift goes barefoot pretty often.
  • During his Black Sabbath days Ozzy Osbourne was said to go barefoot since he lived poor as a child.
  • Josh Groban goes barefoot frequently but doesn't perform in bare feet.
  • Deborah Gibson has performed barefoot since the early 2000s.
  • Louise Post of Veruca Salt, in this performance.
  • Jimmy Buffett often performs barefoot as part of his beach bum persona.

Pro Wrestling

  • Most Wild Samoans wrestle barefoot, to help put over the "island savage" gimmick.
  • Kevin Von Erich wrestled barefoot for most of his career. He has said in interviews that it was because the boots he bought for his first match didn't fit quite right, and from there, it became a trademark.
  • Necro Butcher was told at last minute he had to do a run-in on a Ring of Honor show, and was wearing flip-flops. It wouldn't do a hardcore SOB like himself to be wearing flip-flops and be whaling on people with chairs, so he went in barefoot. It's become a trademark.
  • Grizzly Redwood wore no boots for a while in 2009 because in Ring of Honor, "Dirty" Ernie Osiris had stolen from him. And, apparently, that's okay since he's a lumberjack.
  • UltraMantis Black often goes barefoot in CHIKARA. Maybe it's the difficulty of getting vegan wrestling boots.
  • Joshi wrestlers Carlos Amano and Kana both forgo footwear (with the exception of Kana's kickpads).
  • Velvet McIntyre wrestled barefoot during the 80's while she was in the WWF.
  • G.L.O.W. had a good number of its roster go barefoot, including but not limited to Mt. Fiji, Little Fiji, Little Egypt, Royal Hawaiian, Godiva, The Headhunters, and Jungle Woman.
  • Jungle Grrrl from the (mercifully) short lived women's wrestling promotion WOW.
  • When she's not wearing her all-U.S. attire, Madusa of the WCW had high-heeled boots on during the entrance, which she took off immediately after coming on the ring. Sometimes, however, she walked down the ramp without shoes at all.
    • Michelle Mc Cool has taken her shoes off the similar way and wrestled several of her matches barefoot.


Puppet Shows

  • According to The Merch for The Dark Crystal (specifically, a 2001 action figure), Kira (the female Gelfling) is a barefooter.


Theater

  • Armida in the play A Village Fable. "No shoes, no shoes, I refuse to wear shoes!" is practically her Catch Phrase.
  • In the musical Spring Awakening the character of Ilse spends the entire second act barefoot.
    • The original music director for this show, Kimberly Grisby, also has a reputation for usually being barefoot—everywhere from conducting the show every night to on stage at award shows.
  • In some productions of A Midsummer Nights Dream, one or more of the Fairies are perpetually barefoot.
  • In modern expression theater, it seems to be an unwritten rule that all actors have to be barefoot.


Video Games

  • Everywhere where more or less deep Character Customization is possible (mainly regarding the outfit), it's pretty much possible for the custom character to go barefoot at any time, in any place.
  • Shy-Ann, the meditating hippy flower-girl from Julia's Time Adventures, is barefoot. She is actually a time traveller just like the main character.
  • Dragon Age II
    • Merrill doesn't wear shoes, and occasionally gripes that she wishes she did in areas of cold stone floors.
    • A male example from the same game, Fenris, who was a slave in Tevinter and will also occasionally gripe about the floors.
  • Loads of Fighting Game characters go barefoot. This is appropriate, of course, given the number of martial arts that are practiced barefoot. Considerably:
    • As the source of one of the page quotes, Ryu and Ken (along with half of everyone else) from the Street Fighter series.
    • Street Fighter III actually has three females who are barefoot while fighting: Elena, Ibuki and Makoto. The last, despite being known to be shoeless even during the cutscenes, was later confirmed to wear shoes outside the fights after all, thanks to the Street Fighter IV alternate costumes.
    • Darkstalkers has a few honorable mentions. Felicia is the only barefoot female fighter, Jon tends to burst out of his shoes and top when he goes wolf, and it's seriously doubtful there are any shoes in Sasquatch's size.
      • Some of the Midnight Bliss transformations will also have either this (like for Jon Talbain's) or Foot Focus (like for Sasquatch).
    • Ryo Sakazaki of Art of Fighting, as part of being the SNK answer to Ryu. In the original game Ryo wore geta that he'd kick off before fighting. In the legendarily awful OVA, he declares, "Not wearing shoes is part of our training!" but given the other Kyokugen fighters (Robert and Yuri) have no trouble with footwear, it's just him.
    • In The King of Fighters Momoko, a cute capoerista, has actually been seen only in one game during the entire series, and even in the ending, she haven't been seen wearing shoes at all. Also Mai Shiranui, to a similar extent, except she doesn't wear shoes only when she wears her kunoichi attire, as her only footwear in that case is in-step guards and black thin foot wraps.
    • Chae Lim in Maximum Impact, as for being a taekwondoist.
    • Christie Monteiro from the Tekken series, mainly because she's a Capoeira fighter. Due to the fact that you can customize the outfits, though, it's also possible to see barefoot Lili, Alice and Asuka.
    • Kira Daidouji, Catherine Kyoubashi and Angelia Avallone from Arcana Heart are all barefoot. Kira can justify it by her perpetually swimming in her water blob, at least.
    • Skullgirls has Ms. Fortune and Painwheel, with the first due to being a catgirl and the second one being a Living Weapon who looks like she stepped out from a horror movie.
  • Katrina from Quest for Glory seems to be barefoot even since when the Hero first meets her.
  • World of Warcraft, as of latest expansion, maintains remarkable parity of attitude towards shoes among its races. Alliance and Horde alike have:
    • One race with hooves that preclude wearing shoes. Footwear is equippable for everyone though—it just doesn't show on their model except the ankle part (Draenei and Tauren);
    • One race with non-traditional foot anatomy that seems to be similarly incompatible with displaying shoes (Worgen with their bestial paws, and Trolls on their bizarre two-toed feet with vestigial third toe on the heel);
    • One race which, while generally wears shoes, is sufficiently in tune with nature to feel equally comfortable with or without them (Night Elves and Orcs). Thus they often forego proper shoes, sometimes even when wearing full battle armor, in favor of soleless ankleguards;
    • One race which has a seemingly modern approach to clothing, in tune with their advanced technology, and may sometimes omit shoes out of their casual or informal work wear (Gnomes and Goblins);
    • And two races which seem to firmly consider not wearing shoes an indignity (Humans, Dwarves, Blood Elves and Undead).
    • The pandaren race to be introduced in Mists of Pandaria so far seems to have unremovable painted on sandals, which is a bit jarring for a beastman race.
    • The druid class has a particular predisposition to this. Druids start off barefoot, and while shoes are as important source of stats for every class as any other equippable item, druid specific armor has multiple examples of having shoes appear as ankle bracers. The armor made for monks also seems to gravitate towards this due to them being the martial arts class. Averted by shaman armor despite NPC shaman frequently going barefoot to be more in touch with the elements, specifically earth.
    • Of known lore figures, the night elf High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind and traitorous former Arch-Druid Fandral Staghelm are shown barefoot. Near the end of the Cataclysm expansion, this was averted: Tyrande received a model update changing her from a barefoot priestess in a gown to a warrior priestess in a Magical Girl dress and high heels.
    • Evil empress Azshara, ruler of night elves ten thousand years ago, doesn't wear shoes either when the players pay her a visit in the past. Her justification is apparently a display of power and arrogance.
  • Quite many Mutant-type characters in Champions Online, either due to unusual foot anatomy or savage personalities.
    • The most prominent example is FBI agent Kodiak, who does not like people staring at his big hairy feet while never missing an opportunity to point out how big and hairy they are. He is also a Badass. Subverted with his Evil Twin in the Multifarian Mirror Universe, who wears shoes but has a notably more bestial face.
    • A number of escaped prisoners from the Westside Prison and Stronghold.
    • Many of the Mooks in Vibora Bay, mostly members of the Trey Kings (who dress in little more than leather straps), Sovereign Sons voodoo cultists and the more feral vampires of the New Shadows. Subverted with the Dogz, who wear shoes when not in full werewolf form.
    • Lemurians, even the humanoid ones, wear instep guards rather than shoes, mostly due to living underwater. Females are often completely barefoot.
    • Nearly all members of the Bigfoot tribes in Canada. Guess why.
    • And many player characters, of course.
  • Elika, from the new Prince of Persia is a barefooting, spicy princess with feet made of steel, running and jumping from burning deserts to rocky cliffs without a need for shoes, all the while fighting to stop an evil, pissed off god from breaking out of his prison, without even taking a minute's break.
  • Kunoichi's alternate costumes in both Samurai Warriors and Warriors Orochi Z have her traverse practically barefoot, wearing only instep "guards" (i.e. toeless, heelless socks). In Warriors Orochi, Da Ji also runs around barefoot (well, bare pawed, since she's a fox demon).
  • Beast races (Khajiit and Argonian) in Morrowind can't wear shoes or boots, due to being digitigrade and having differently shaped feet to humans, elves, and each other. Khajiiti gain absolutely nothing in return for having one less equipment slot and inability to wear the best helmets, so they are the least popular race in the game. Argonians see their biggest use in speed runs, as they start with a bonus to speed and athletics.
  • Maylene from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl games. Perhaps because she's a Fighting-type specialist, she believes it's healthier for one to go barefoot. In Platinum, she remains barefoot even while walking to Snowpoint City!
    • Among the kinds of regular trainers you battle, the Psychics often go barefoot. Swimmers and Tubers do as well, but they don't count since they're in swimsuits. Also male Fighting-type trainers, wearing karate gis.
  • Kaede Smith from Killer7. Her nickname as part of the Killer 7 is actually "Barefoot".
  • Marky Dubois of Backyard Sports was like this originally.
  • Hurthlings from Ancient Domains of Mystery do not like shoes and get a dexterity penalty for wearing them.
  • Ilia from The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess. The game's version of the Great Fairy as well, who also doesn't wear a shirt (but covers up with Godiva Hair).
  • Similar to the Morrowind example above, Kieran in Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos is a Huline (a cat-human hybrid) and the only playable character who cannot equip footwear of any kind due to his unique leg structure.
  • Ryu ga Gotoku: When fighting in the underground Coliseum, Kazuma Kiryu eschews shoes. Almost certainly an example of badassitude.
  • Abe no Yasutsugu, the Artificial Human onmyoji from Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 2, goes around barefoot, in a strange difference from Yasuaki in the first game, of whom Yasutsugu is an Expy.[3]
  • Touhou series:
    • Tewi Inaba, the Youkai earth rabbit. This emphasizes that, while she may look human, she is still very much a wild animal at heart.
    • Cirno as well. She wears socks, but never shoes.
    • Yasaka Kanako too, is either barefoot half the time, or in really loose straw sandals.
    • Minoriko Aki doesn't seem to be wearing shoes, either. Oddly, her sister is.
  • The main character of Enslaved Odyssey to The West, Monkey, goes barefoot. Kinda helps him look even more like his namesake.
  • Played with in Blaze Union. Mizer loves shoes, but he's made an oath to go barefoot until the poor are no longer oppressed.
  • Chell, the player character in Portal, for some reason. Her Advanced Knee Replacement prosthetics (that prevent falling damage) don't seem to require it. This may be because at the start of the game, she was sleeping. Averted in the sequel, where she wears the Long Fall Boots instead.
  • Final Fantasy
    • In Dissidia Final Fantasy, three extremely attractive ladies go barefoot: Cosmos, The Cloud Of Darkness, and Ultimecia, plus one more (Yuna) has something of a Foot Focus. Lots of people suspect the Dissidia designs were intended to target as many fetishes as possible, this is part of the reason why. Cosmos is a goddess, and as such isn't expected to wear shoes; Cloud of Darkness is a Hive Mind and doesn't actually look like that; Yuna's lack of shoes comes from her source material (shoes get in the way when you do the Sending on the surface of a lake, apparently)... No clue about Ultimecia.
    • That's nothing really compared to Final Fantasy X, where pretty much everyone went barefoot—the NPCs at least anyway. Seriously, 4 out of 5 random NPCs would be barefoot, with the vast majority being female. Out of the party, though, it's limited to Yuna (see above), Wakka (tropical islander), and Kimahri (giant furred beastman). Justified by Spira's mostly tropical climate.
  • Zilean in League of Legends is not wearing shoes. However, given that he's floating...
  • Many Fire Emblem games have at least one character who doesn't wear shoes, though sometimes this is only apparent in their official art (and, as characters tend to be drawn multiple times by different people, it may change from art to art). This is especially common with the Dancer class (for obvious reasons), and to a lesser extent the Brigand class (probably to emphasize their wild nature).
  • The protagonist of The Suffering, Torque, takes off his shoes after entering his cell in the intro. When his cell door is opened, he leaves his shoes behind and spends the rest of the first game barefoot.
  • Rick from the Splatterhouse series is barefoot whenever he dons the Terror Mask.


Web Animation


Web Comics

Belkar: Pffft. Shoes are for suckers. All part of a big conspiracy on the part of the cobblers.

  • Terinu himself (you try finding shoes for guys with three toes) and Ninetta are the worst offenders. Not to mention every Vulpine not in a spacesuit...
  • Mab from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures. According to her official biography, "Mab has a deep-seated dislike of wearing shoes."
  • Morgana Honeydew of Flaky Pastry, being a halfling, doesn't wear shoes. She claims this is because she can't find any in her width.
  • Most of the characters in Salt the Holly go barefoot even when shoes are available.
  • Almost all of the female characters remain barefooted in 1977. Many of the boys wind up that way, as well. Creator W. Byron Wilkins once stated on his blog that he "always had a thing for chicks who never wore shoes."
  • The title character of Daisy Is Dead usually walks around barefoot.
  • Meghan, the lead character of Arpeggio, has "got no use for shoes... and can get rather militant about that." After she's chastised by an administrator, Meghan's best friend asks, "Meg, do you even own shoes?" The response: "I think I saw a pair at the bottom of my closet last spring. Maybe."
  • Hope from Alone in A Crowd embodies this trope. She explains her reasons in this comic. (She's also not averse to some occasional skinny dipping...)
  • Antimony of Gunnerkrigg Court, while less pronounced than most other characters on this page, prefers to go barefoot when alone and remove shoes while at rest outside. Unusually, it realistically affects her soles. It is a matter of choice—she's still barefoot when possible even after being taught to make perfectly fitting boots.
  • The main character in Kelly Hamilton's comic Roza is barefoot most of the time. At one point she steals boots but loses them soon thereafter. Her curse of having self-igniting blood may help her survive barefoot in snow with no damage. As of the latest chapter, she has the boots back and looks to be keeping them on. According to the author, once Roza enters the big city she'll be wearing light pumps for good. The fans are displeased.
  • The wights of Vanadys: Tales of a Fallen Goddess go barefoot, largely because they have big, clawed feet and shoes would be impractical.
  • Elf Blood
    • Ixnay, being a pixie, has never been seen to be wearing shoes. Considering that the only other pixie shown in the comic thus far, Sassoon, also goes barefoot it can probably be safely assumed that the whole pixie race doesn't see the need for shoes since they're normally either flying or resting on elevated surfaces (tables, etc).
      • In the recent strips, however, she is seen wearing hiking boots.
    • The rest of the cast does seem to display a preference for going barefoot when in a residential environment.
  • Trigger in Far Out There, at least ever since he adopted his space hippy look.
  • Kari Tyrell in Crimson Dark. Strangely, it is never brought up in dialogue, and almost no visual focus makes that clear. She just doesn't wear shoes when she's not in the cockpit.
  • In Pet Projects, Notle the Witch usually goes barefoot when she is at home. She wear shoes or boots when she's outside, or at work though.
  • Itchyknee-san of Samurai Princess does not wear shoes, but that is part of being a sumo wrestler. Jacquline however just does not like socks.
  • Myari from Ears for Elves doesn't make a big deal of it, but has yet to be seen wearing shoes/boots/moccasins. This is apparently something she has done since childhood.
  • Sette Frummagen from Unsounded remains barefoot from the first panel where she appears and on. It's not explained why, and no one really cares enough to bring it up.

Web Original

  • In an obvious display of Author Appeal, The Barefoot Sorority, a series of stories by southerncrossfire44, is built around this trope. The concept is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. The first story is here.
    • southerncrossfire44 has also written two other series, also available at his Deviant ART site: another Slice of Life story called No Shoes Pizza, and a new Spy Drama called Barefoot Agent.
  • Gwenevere Singley's foppishly sociopathic shapeshifter Erroneous is always barefoot, even when he's engaged in espionage activities where shoes would help him blend better. He refuses to explain why, but it might be for the same reason he's not 100% comfortable wearing normal clothes even; he can do it, but if he's not required to wear something else, he prefers a slightly mangled chainmail robe under a long black coat. He's so anti-shoes that in a recent Christmas picture, he's actually transformed his feet into ice skate blades rather than just wearing a pair of skates.
  • The Cinema Snob is often seen without shoes and just wearing socks. He doesn't always do this, but he figures 9/10 times his feet are out of sight anyway, and he even goes out to lampshade this a couple of times. In several of his reviews he's also been completely barefoot with no socks.
  • Curly from Shiny Objects Videos rarely wore shoes in the earlier videos. Real Life Writes the Plot.
  • The Nostalgia Critic wears battered sneakers when he goes outside, but when he's in his house he'll nearly always be barefoot.
  • Alexandra Hutton of The Book of Stories OCT, being a famous bookwriter, as well as working for a major publishing company, doesn't want to give a damn about wearing shoes: unless it's not needed, she will most probably wear sandals.


Western Animation


Real Life

  • Nicole Kidman, Cameron Diaz and Sean Astin have actually shown up to red carpet premieres in bare feet.
    • At the premiere of the movie Charlie's Angels, Cameron Diaz went barefoot so she wouldn't tower over her co-stars.
    • Kristen Stewart, as mentioned above, also likes to go barefoot at these fairly formal occasions.
  • Julia Roberts is known for going barefoot a lot, even going so far as to get married that way (and it wasn't a beach wedding, either). She even asks the directors she works with if she can incorporate this tendency into her characters; judging by how frequently she is barefoot in her film roles, most of them don't seem to have a problem complying.
  • Melissa Joan Hart is proabably an example too judging by how many times she's been photographed barefoot and that in these photos looks natural comfortable and like she's enjoying herself posing in her bare feet.
  • There are a number of organizations dedicated to promoting a shoes-free lifestyle, including The Society for Barefoot Living and Parents for Barefoot Children. These groups claim that going barefoot not only provides many health benefits, but is also instrumental in creating a more peaceful, spiritually connected state of mind.
  • According to some sources, Sophie Marceau is also fond of walking barefoot, especially on the old streets of Paris.
  • Interior designer Genevieve Gorder is an unusual case; she went barefoot constantly on Trading Spaces, but she claims it was because the show had no wardrobe budget and she didn't want to ruin her shoes. It remains a trademark, however; the opening graphic of Dear Genevieve shows her reclining on a couch with her shoes visibly kicked off.
    • And she did a commercial or two this way, too.
  • Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila famously ran and won the marathon in the Summer Olympics of 1960, running barefoot, because his team-issued shoes hurt his feet. Bikila was used to running barefoot, since that was how he typically trained. However, in 1964, he ran wearing shoes and won again.
    • Women's distance runner Zola Budd ran most of her races barefoot, as she grew up in South Africa, accustomed to going unshod.
    • Barefoot running has become a significant trend among casual runners in recent years. Many barefoot runners believe that running without shoes can help prevent injuries and improve form.
  • As implied by the nickname, Colton Harris-Moore, the "barefoot boy bandit", is an 18 year old boy who eluded Sheriffs and Officers in the Seattle area for over 2 years. He also had a tendency to hunt his own food and live in the forest—until he finally got caught. He is currently serving a sentence of 6 and a half years, and his life story is being sold, the profits to pay restitution to his victims.
  • A number of placekickers in American football have preferred to kick barefoot, citing that it gives them better control over the direction of the kick. However, the practice is currently banned in many leagues, including almost all high school leagues.
  • Many martial arts of cultures the world over are practiced barefoot. The reasons vary; in Asia it is often tied to cultural customs about when and where footwear is worn. The practice has certain advantages. Bare feet provide better balance and grip to the floor, and the practice toughens the skin so that if you are attacked while barefoot you can still fight effectively.
    • Capoeira is a notable example.
    • Sumō wrestlers go barefoot, as do gyōji for makushita division and lower (makuuchi and jūryō gyōji wear white tabi, while sandanme gyōji wear the same along with zōri).
  • Isis and Jackrabbit, the so-called Barefoot Sisters, yo-yo hiked the Appalachian Trail (roughly 2000 miles) totally barefooted except in very snowy or icy conditions.
  • Reportedly, Summer Glau also isn't very fond of shoes.
  • Pamela Anderson is quite renowned due to many candid photos taken and published on the net for walking barefoot throughout town.
  • A number of musicians regularly perform barefoot on stage. (See Music.)
  • An interview with Elijah Wood reveals that The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson often appeared barefoot on the set, "like a real-life Hobbit."
  • Socrates may be the Ur Example.
  • At any given point, about half the students at New College of Florida are not wearing shoes. This may hold true for some other college campuses as well.
    • Reed College, a notoriously hippie school in Oregon (which gets significantly colder than Florida) also has a large barefoot population. Because of this, the on-campus communist group has started leaving makeshift cardboard shoes outside of the dining hall where shoes are required for students who forget. New student orientation actually has to make a point to tell the students that in the dining hall, gym (on equipment) and chemistry labs, at least, they have to wear shoes.
  • Cody Lundin of the show Dual Survival hasn't worn shoes in over 22 years. He will, however, wear sandals (usually improvised from available materials) if necessary, such as when walking on sharp volcanic rock and other hostile terrain. But he also went barefoot in knee deep swamp water filled with highly poisonous water moccasins (which his partner Dave repeatedly called him out on).
    • Dave tends to call Cody out on his shoelessness in almost every episode.
    • Cody went in with his feet covered only in environments where there was knee deep snow, and that was only wearing thick wool socks.
  • Albert Einstein, being the poster boy for Absent-Minded Professor, was a big fan of this, even going so far as to attend official functions barefoot. (And when he did wear shoes, he almost never accompanied them with socks. He did not like socks.)
  • Isadora Duncan and practitioners of modern dance in general. (Duncan was a big fan of "nature," and most non-heritage dances are best performed barefoot, with light or nonexistent clothing.)
  • Plenty of poor people, particularly those in warm climates, still don't wear or even own shoes. Still more wear only handmade sandals, cobbled together from woven grass or cut bits of old tires.
  • Unfortunately averted with one of the world's tallest men, a man from China. When the Olympic basketball committee came to see if he could be a good player, they found that he'd forced his growing feet into the only available shoes for so long that the bones were stunted, ruining his agility. He could have used some good flip-flops.
    • Not a huge surprise, given the long Chinese practice of mutilating girls' feet to make them smaller and "more attractive." Women whose feet were broken and bound would limp throughout their lives, and they did this to their children on purpose. A bit ironic that it happened to a man unintentionally, though.
  • Among the things correlated with above-average IQ: an aversion to wearing shoes.
  • Due to Values Dissonance, Japanese people can appear this way when in reality it's a tradition that one does not wear shoes inside the house.
  • Same goes for Muslims who are quite puzzled (and sometimes disgusted) when they see westerners wearing shoes inside their homes.
  • Neither do Russians and most other post-Soviets, who consider wearing shoes at home uncultured. Some go for slippers, some go barefoot.
  • Rob Bredl, the barefoot bushman. Even when catching crocodiles, according to The Other Wiki.
  • Japanese Tendai Buddhist monks are known to perform a grueling journey of ascetism and devotion called the Kaihôgyô—which takes seven years, and is basically one thousand days, ten blocks of a hundred, of running through the mountains; they start out with a distance of about one full marathon, and finish with a double marathon a day. If they fail, they are expected to kill themselves. Here's what makes it relevant to this trope: they do not wear special footwear for this, but rather simple straw sandals, and sometimes run barefoot. This has also resulted in some rather spectacular feet near the end of the undertaking.
  • Averted in Spanish culture, where it's considered rude to be barefoot, often even within one's own home.
  • Bea Arthur would parade around in her house barefooted. If you look in some episodes of The Golden Girls you could also see her walking around the set without her boots. She was also prone to kicking her shoes off while driving, which caused a bit of an awkward situation once during her Maude days when she showed up at a club barefoot, having forgotten her sandals in the car. She went in anyway.
  • Being uncomfortable in shoes is a possible trait of people with Asperger's Syndrome. Especially kids.
    • Subverted with some aspies who revile feet and wear shoes at all times in public.
  • Sierra Larson, who has her own blog about it. What makes her so special? she lives in Alberta, so she goes unshod almost everywhere. Even in winter. The only times she does wear anything on her feet is at work.
  • Sam Snead, famous for his laid-back, folksy image, often golfed barefoot.
  1. ↑ Gratuitous Spanish for "bare feet"
  2. ↑ until her Heel Face Turn
  3. ↑ Of course, Yasutsugu apparently doesn't wear pants either...
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