In the circle of life that is the fashion industry, everyone knows that nothing ever really goes "out" forever. It just gets recycled years later, much more expensively, and everyone who had the foresight to hold on to their ratty leopard print jacket or trapeze dress from the first time around congratulates themselves. We do not know how we feel about the return of Doc Martens. Our first time around (for their second time), we were young and impressionable and listening to that "grunge music"! And now, we have learned, someone has decided that they are back, for real.

First we heard from a friend. "I have seen three hipsters this morning wearing low top Doc Martens," she reported. Weird, we thought. Was this some kind of anti-establishment statement? Or was it just another ironic reappropriation of old footwear styles, like Topsiders?

Then we saw this photo from the Chloé winter ready-to-wear show, and we got sad, because it meant that really, no one had the original idea, even if they thought they did—it was just a canny decision by someone at Chloé to make some really expensive version of Doc Martens and quietly make it infiltrate into the culture. So really? It's all just a conspiracy.

Winter Ready-to-Wear [Chloe]