Feline good: why kitten heel flip-flops are winning over flats-only gen Z

From Lily Collins at Wimbledon to the cast of Love Island, heels-averse cohort is stepping it up a notch

Gen Z, the flats-only generation, has finally succumbed to the heel - albeit a tiny one. Long vocally anti-heel, the cohort who were born between 1997 and 2012 have famously shunned millennials' obsession with Jimmy Choos in favour of pancake-flat shoes, from the Adidas Samba It-trainer" to the split-toe Margiela Tabi and so-called French girl ballet flats".

But they now appear to be embracing a potential gateway heel, typically measuring in the region of 1.5in (3.8cm) or the height of a triple-A battery.