Prefers Going Barefoot

"Shoes? No, I can certainly afford them; I go barefoot for comfort."

— Ryu (win quote), Street Fighter IV

This character tries to avoid wearing shoes whenever possible. The reasons for this vary greatly, some of which are common enough to be tropes of their own:

• Barefoot Loon: As a sign of eccentricity or absent-mindedness. Bunny Ears Lawyers and Cloudcuckoolanders may go barefoot in public because they are either flouting societal conventions or are simply oblivious to them.
• Barefoot Sage: Enlightened sages and eccentric mentors, for the reason that they know and see more than everyone else does, and are just too wise to care about said social conventions. This may also be a form of religious asceticism.
• Earthy Barefoot Character: To show that they are connected to the soil in some way. This may overlap with other subtropes if they have elemental or nature-linked powers that are weakened or neutralised if they don't have skin contact with the ground, but it's frequently just a metaphor. Most often though, this is simply the rural character who just enjoys feeling nature. The Nature Hero, Barbarian Hero, Noble Savage, Hot Gypsy Woman, Jungle Princess and Tarzan Boy are almost always barefoot.
• Magical Barefooter: Characters with magical powers sometimes go barefoot — this may be because they need contact with the soil for their powers, because they are invulnerable to injury or soiling, to demonstrate their lack of interest in social conventions, or to demonstrate their "higher being" status.
• Surefooted Barefooter: When a character prefers going barefoot because it allows for unhindered agility; typically associated with stealthy, instinctive or resilient characters.
• Martial Artists Are Always Barefoot: Martial artists are often portrayed as being habitually barefoot even in non-combat situations.
• Undead Barefooter: Undead characters may go barefoot, either to dramatize their inhumanity and/or because they don't feel pain or cold and are thus unconcerned about the comfort of their feet.

This is also sometimes a sign of youthful innocence or vulnerability, and many of the characters who demonstrate this trope are either children or childlike. The lack of shoes may also be used as an indication of untamed ruggedness.

This trope is often used in visual media as an excuse to show frequent close-up shots of bare feet, usually due to Fanservice or Author Appeal (or both if you're Quentin Tarantino or Joss Whedon), which may explain why female barefooters outnumber males practically 2-1, or why their feet are very rarely visibly dirty or calloused. Conversely, there's a little bit of Truth in Television here; women are more likely to go barefoot than men in a given context.

Characters may end up barefoot due to circumstances beyond their control (Barefoot Captives, Barefoot Poverty, etc.), which is not this trope, unless they develop the preference for going barefoot if they enjoyed their shoeless experience.

Downplayed, but still broadly applicable, if a character has a notable preference for open-toed (or especially open-arched) footwear like sandals or flip-flops, particularly in circumstances when others usually put on closed shoes or boots (like in cold weather or on formal occasions); this version is often used to still convey the essence of the trope while sidestepping questions of practicality. Does not apply if none of the characters wear shoes and the work portrays a society or setting where shoes don't even exist.

Contrast The One Who Wears Shoes, wherein a character is the only one to wear shoes in a world of barefooters (usually Barefoot Cartoon Animals).

And no, it is not this trope if a character only is only barefoot at common times. Being barefoot in the shower, in bed, or at the beach/swimming pool, or wearing sandals on a hot day are not examples of this trope. The character must be shown to specifically enjoy being barefoot and exploit any opportunity to do so, especially at times and in places you would otherwise expect one to wear shoes.

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Other Examples

Advertising

• Mountain Dew's Country-inspired "Get That Barefoot Feeling" jingle from the late 1960s/early '70s practically name-drops this trope^note "I'd rather be barefoot than any other way I know-oh-oh.", while attempting to make the soda sound equally invigorating. The advertisements themselves show various Mountain Dew drinkers happily attending public or social situations in their bare feet.
• A businessman in one BMW commercial, promoting the sensitivity of the car's all-wheel drive, decides to explore his workplace and its city barefoot, and learns to enjoy feeling different tactile sensations with his feet, including the brush of an asphalt road, and the rush of a rainwater stream.

Comic Books

• Teen Titans: 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.
• Danny from John Byrne's Next Men. Justified in the sense that shoes can't stand up to the force of his running, so he has to toughen up his feet to do so.
• During The '70s, Shang-Chi went barefoot everywhere. Called out on this by a security guard at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City ("Hey, kid! Why Don't you get some shoes?"), he replied, "Why do you fear to touch the ground? Does the concrete not separate you from it enough?"
• 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. Jack Hawksmoor's alterations to be fully adapted to city living include "metallic" appearing foot soles, allowing him to walk on any city surface comfortably (concrete, asphalt, etc).
• The Séance from The Umbrella Academy, but in an odd forgettable comment in the Dallas arc, it's because he can't use his powers when wearing them. Granted, this does come from a psychotic assassin in a dog head, but in that time, Seance doesn't really try to fight back, so his powers are probably at least inhibited.
• Wonder Woman (1942): Giganta, who was in this iteration a gorilla transplanted into a woman's body, refused to wear shoes and only barely puts up with the torn tunic which preserves her new body's modesty.

Comic Strips

• Peanuts: Peppermint Patty strictly prefers wearing sandals almost everywhere she goes, even in the winter, which emphasizes her tough nature. One story arc involved the school's dress code banning her sandals, which her dad bought her because she's a "rare gem." It upset her to the point of tears.
• In Phoebe and Her Unicorn, Marigold points out in one strip that "Goblins find shoes uncomfortable".
  • In the summer strips, Phoebe either goes barefoot or wears sandals. In fact, she goes barefoot more often than the other human characters, but not excessively often.
• In Red and Rover, this is definitely the case with Red in all the summer strips. One has him announcing it's summer vacation to his dog, Rover. Rover bounds to meet him, knocking Red's shoes and socks off in the process, and his thought bubble is "Whaddya wanna do first?" Red's reply is "Trade my shoes and socks for a pair of bare feet." Another one has him taking his shoes, socks, and shirt off, saying "Summer vacation, it is here!" Another has him ripping his shoes, socks, shirt, and even trousers off, revealing his swimming costume, saying he certainly is prepared for summer vacation. And yet another has him going to the shoe shop, saying shoes feel odd, and his mum saying any shoes would, as he's spent the entire summer barefoot.
• The title character in Wallace the Brave makes a ritual of throwing his shoes in the bay at the start of summer. In his words:
  "Without shoes I'm quicker, faster and stealthier."

Fan Works

• Terra Caldwell from the Pokémon fanfic Convergent Paths is nearly always barefoot, due to being a "Mother Earth" character who likes meditating. Lampshaded by one of the other characters, Daniel, who mentions her "strange aversion to shoes" in Chapter 62.
• Sonic the Hedgehog fancomic Ghosts of the Future introduces Silver's sister Venice, who is always seen barefoot. Granted, she's only ever seen in her physical form at her home or, later, a hospital bed, where it's not atypical, but her character sheet explicitly notes she "likes to go barefoot", implying it's more than that. In addition, Nicole also goes barefoot, as per the character's original design, while Tikal and Scourge lose the shoes from their original designs.
• Xanna (and later Naruto) in the Reaching for a Dream series hates wearing shoes. Even when wearing rather impressive looking (if impractical) armor, she always goes barefoot because she finds it more comfortable. It helps that she's a demon and by the end of the story both she and Naruto are gods. Naruto exploits this in a later story by making a bet where the loser has to wear an outfit he selects that includes high heels. Xanna hates them so much that she doesn't ask about the rest of the outfit, which includes a collar that negates her powers.
• As the title implies, Harry Potter in Barefoot goes barefoot as often as possible. This is because he can learn the history of anything he touches and notes all the things he can learn through his soles.
• A.A. Pessimal's Discworld fic Hyperemesis Gravidarum sees Assassins' Guild student and long-distance runner Mariella Smith-Rhodes setting out for a race. She is from the Discworld's Expy of South Africa and like Zola Budd prefers to compete barefoot, for much the same reasons.
• Firefly foot story focuses on this aspect of River's character. Upon realizing she's the only woman onboard Serenity with an interest in walking barefoot, River gets the idea to steal every piece of footwear that she, Kaylee, Inara and Zoe own and throw them out the airlock. When the other three women realize they're stuck being barefoot for an entire month, they're initially annoyed and uncomfortable, but by the end, all three women admit that they're enjoying being barefoot.
• Aki from The Second Try is noted by her parents as hating footwear of any kind, to the point that they gave up trying to force her unless it was absolutely necessary. This comes up as a gag in the sequel comic Aki-chan's Life when they have to put her shoes on when she starts attending kindergarten, though later chapters imply that she's at least learned to tolerate it.
• Lambda in the Time Break Saga doesn't wear shoes at all and makes it clear that she hates wearing them. She tries to justify it by saying that her auto-repair fixes any wear-and-tear her feet go through. Even when she's convinced by others to wear shoes, they're always open-toed.
• In the Kid Icarus: Uprising fanfic Angel Sandals'', Pit explains that while he has closed-toe footwear for some occasions, he prefers to wear sandals almost everywhere he goes. This is because they give his feet both comfort and protection and the freedom to wiggle his bare toes whenever he pleases. He goes on to talk about the benefits he gets from wearing sandals, one of them that he really loves the most is having his exposed toes subjected to a Friendly Tickle Torture by pretty girls.
  Pit: To me, wearing sandals gives such a pleasing balance of being able to go almost barefoot but still having shoes on your feet to protect your soles from harm at the same time, because everyone knows that shoes are always necessary.
  • By the same creator, there's even a list of the different sandals Pit owns, explaining their different types.

Films — Animation

• In her human form, Ariel from The Little Mermaid goes barefoot more often than she wears shoes, both in the movies and the spinoff books. Her daughter Melody in the sequel is also a dedicated barefooter, only wearing shoes when she's forced to.
• Dot in Dot and the Kangaroo and its sequels.
• Fire and Ice (1983): Princess Teegra does not seem to mind being Exposed to the Elements, running through the jungle and in a frigid ice palace in only a micro bikini. She does feel cold one earlier evening, but does not seem to mind running around barefoot on ice and snow.
• In The Prince of Egypt, Moses throws off his sandals when God in the burning bush tells him to take them off in respect of this holy ground. Moses seemingly never recovers them again after that.
• In Rise of the Guardians, Jack Frost walks barefoot, leaving frozen patches on the ground where he walks. When offered a pair of blue elf shoes (with bells) from an elf, Jack cringes and stops the Guardian initiation ceremony immediately. Near the end of the story, it is revealed that he walked on ice barefoot even as a human.
• Tangled: Rapunzel is of the youthful innocence variety, plus she never needed shoes due to never leaving her tower. Interestingly, no one in the entire film comments on it, aside from Mother Gothel pointing a mirror down at Rapunzel's bare feet and commenting that she's "underdressed" — causing Rapunzel to immediately pull the bottom of her dress down over her feet. (There's considerably more lampshading in Tangled: The Series since she's a royal princess who spends time outside and yet never wears proper shoes.)
  • She didn't even wear shoes to her wedding in Tangled Ever After, electing to get married barefoot (as the concept art and storybook version reveal. In the short film itself, her dress is too long to tell.) The later storybook Ghosts of Christmas Past then shows that while she'll shun shoes most of the time, she'll renege to them if it calls for walking in snow.
  • Ironically, one bit of early concept art shows Rapunzel with shoes... however, in the artwork, she's shown kicking them off her feet. In Ralph Breaks the Internet her comfy outfit includes sneakers.

Films — Live Action

• In the 1939 film The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck says, "Shoes and I don't get along."
• Juliette, Brigitte Bardot's character in And God Created Woman. She even goes to work barefooted; her foster mother mentions that one of the customers complained about that.
• Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe: Dante prefers to eschew shoes, even on Texas dirt roads, a character beat that helps underscore his unique way of looking at the world.
• Maria Vargas, Ava Gardner's character in The Barefoot Contessa could practically be the trope namer. She 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 herself enjoyed going barefoot in real life, and was disappointed to find out that Maria wore shoes in some scenes.
• Barefoot, a Foreign Remake of the German film Barfuss', naturally features this. Here, it's the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Daisy, who insists shoes hurt her feet. This is the least of her many crazy quirks.
• The aptly-named German film Barfuss (which is German for "barefoot", except in a slightly incorrect spelling) features a pretty naive girl named Leila. Being held at home by her mother (until she died) for full nineteen years not only made Leila completely unfamiliar to the socium - it has made her completely unfamiliar with shoes as well. Leila's feet remain naked even when Nick shows the girl all the wonders of the modern life and even after she has stopped wearing her nightdress all the time.
• In Bell, Book and Candle, Hot Witch Gillian Holroyd (played by Kim Novak) is a Magical Barefooter who goes barefoot in just about every indoor scene, and some of the outdoor ones as well. 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). Here, it's a matter of style/statement. At that time, going barefoot was associated with Beatniks and bohemian types. When Gillian loses her powers, she undergoes Chickification and begins to wear shoes indoors.
• Agador/Spartacus, the houseboy in The Birdcage (the American remake of La Cage aux folles), does not wear shoes because they make him fall down. His employer, Armand, scoffs at this, but it turns out he is telling the truth as he slips and falls at least once. Armand and Albert don't seem to care, or even notice, that he's barefoot until they're about to have company, which is when their son Val insists he wears the shoes.
• Dark Shadows: The movie adaptation from the series, have Carolyn Stoddard. She doesn't wear shoes in the movie, and she's always in bare feet or long socks. It's later revealed that she's a werewolf, and her feet transforms into a wolf-like digitigrade legs. Curiously, she is the only werewolf in Dark Shadows to be female and barefoot, as the other werewolves from the franchise (that don't appear in the movie) are males and used shoes.
• In Happy Death Day, Tree goes barefoot often - sometimes while relaxing in her room, and other times leaving Carter's dorm in the morning without ever putting her shoes on. In one occasion, she even tosses her shoes away as soon as she steps outside, before happily going about her routine.
• In The Kidnappers, Harry and Davy Mackenzie are usually barefoot once they have settled in with their grandparents and paternal aunt and only wear shoes when they are attending school.
• 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.
• Liane, Jungle Goddess: Having grown up in the jungle, Jungle Princess Liane is not used to wearing shoes, and kicks off her high heeled shoes and leaves them in the middle of the street in Hamburg.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • The Avengers and Iron Man 3: After Pepper Potts starts a relationship with Tony, she's often seen being barefoot once they start living together. Along with her more casual clothes, it's a sign of how they're able to relax around each other. (The practical reason for this is that Gwyneth Paltrow is taller than Robert Downey Jr. especially with heels and the filmmakers will take what they can get to keep them in frame together. It also prevents her high heels from getting in the way when she wears the Mark 42 armor in Iron Man 3.)
  • Thor goes barefoot in the Team Thor series of Thor: Ragnarok viral promos, whenever unwinding at his roommate Darryl's house. The second video briefly shows that Thor does have slippers while staying there, but Team Thor never shows him wearing them.
  • Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: Wanda Earth-838 counterpart spends most of her screen time barefoot.
• The Million Dollar Hotel has an eccentric girl named Eloise (portrayed by Milla Jovovich). This fact has been lampshaded in the movie at least once, brought up with the help of Feet-First Introduction, and strengthen with that even after Eloise gets a white dress, she leaves her new high-heeled shoes in the bar, continuing her barefoot life. Milla actually spent two months barefoot in preparation for this movie.
• In Moonrise Kingdom, Suzy Bishop's three younger brothers are usually seen playing games or listening to music together in their bare feet.
• In the B-Movie (and Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode) The Phantom Planet, at least some of the female aliens go barefoot, with others opting for flat pumps.
• In Rush (2013), James Hunt is seen barefoot even in places where most people would wear shoes, like a garage. Apparently, this is Truth in Television: the real James Hunt would often appear in public in a T-shirt, jeans and barefoot, even when meeting V.I.P.s and sponsors.
• 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."
• Zig-zagged in the 1995 film Tom and Huck. Tom wore shoes for most of the movie even though the character commonly goes barefoot in the books, supposedly at actor Jonathan Taylor Thomas' insistence so that he wouldn't hurt himself on the outdoor sets. Meanwhile, Huck's actor Brad Renfro had no problem with it because he was a proud country boy from Tennessee who was already used to being barefoot most of the time. In fact, when Huck gets taken in by an elderly widow at the end of the movie, shoes are part of his new civilized look that Tom hates.
• Soledad Descalza (Soledad Barefoot/Barefoot Soledad) is a Spanish mockumentary dealing with Soledad who is barefoot and the various reactions that her perpetual shoelessness engenders.
• Victor from The Wild Child is initially afraid of shoes, thinking they'll hurt him. Itard forces shoes onto his feet, and then Madame Guérin helps him walk across the room, showing him he has nothing to be afraid of.

Live-Action TV

• The Empress: The unconventional lady Sisi wanders around the Ischl villa grounds barefoot, only to run into the emperor. He notices that she isn't wearing shoes, and she replies that she doesn't like them.
• Joe Hart from Glee does not feel comfortable with shoes and goes barefoot all the time. He justifies it by saying it's because of his religion, and that Jesus didn't use shoes^note ignoring that Jesus wore sandals, but going barefoot to school has got to be against some kind of regulation!
• In the British series Love, Nina, the title character walks around north London in the 1980s perpetually barefoot, only putting on a pair of gym shoes for a job interview. In the last episode of the first (so far the only) series, Nina does explain her aversion to shoes; "I find that if you wear shoes, you don't feel so much"; evidently, she has never stepped on a snail...
• Ocean Girl: Being a Wild Child, Neri goes barefoot at any opportunity. Her reaction when Jason and Brett make her wear boots (to draw less attention when she first walks into ORCA) is "Do I have to wear them?" Later, it turns out all of her race don't wear anything on their feet, as it would impede their ability to swim.
• Shaka Zulu. The young Shaka complains that his army sandals impede him on the battlefield, and demonstrates his lack of need for them by grinding out a flaming stick with his foot while sneering contemptuously. When he's put in charge of training an army, he makes them go barefoot too, running them for miles until they have callused soles like he does.

Music

• Band-Maid's bassist MISA is known as the "Barefoot Assassin" and either goes barefooted or wears socks while on stage.
• Eurovision Song Contest:
  • The winner in 1967, 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.
  • The winners of the 2012 and 2013 Eurovision contests, Swedish Loreen and Danish Emmelie de Forest respectively, also performed barefoot when they won. The latter had claimed singing barefoot was her style as it made her feel closer to nature and more relaxed. Loreen once again peformed barefoot when she returned to, and won, the contest in 2023.
• Cape Verdean singer 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.
  "In Cape Verde, where I lived, I was always barefooted. I walked down the street barefoot. I walked in the house barefoot. Ever since then, and now that I travel around the world, I stay mostly barefoot, though I wear little slippers sometimes so that my feet don't freeze in cold places."
• 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.
• Jimmy Buffett often performed barefoot as part of his beach bum persona.
• 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." He's also barefoot on the cover of his 1971 album Stones.
• Paul McCartney of The Beatles doesn't wear shoes if he can help it — he appeared barefoot on the famous cover of Abbey Road. Bare feet are also implied in this verse from the from the Revolver track "Good Day Sunshine".
  We take a walk, the sun is shining down
  Burns my feet as they touch the ground
• Pop duo Megan and Liz frequently perform barefoot.
• Idina Menzel went barefoot for her entire 2012 summer tour, even calling it the "Barefoot at the Symphony Tour".
• Shakira 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. Also, it's traditional for belly dancers (she's a lifelong raqs sharqi dancer).
• Colbie Caillat tends to go barefoot pretty often. She has a lot of barefoot photos, appears barefoot in the music videos for "Bubbly", "Lucky" and "I Do", and went barefoot when she performed the latter live with Jason Mraz on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.
• Edward Ka-Spel, lead singer of the Legendary Pink Dots, doesn't seem to enjoy wearing shoes onstage.
• Tim Minchin seldom wears shoes during his performances; he says he feels he is not a natural performer, and avoids wearing shoes to make himself more comfortable on-stage... so he can forget that he's actually on-stage.
• Pianist Delta Goodrem prefers to play the piano while barefoot.
• Ukulele virtuoso Taimane Gardner traditionally performs barefoot, much so that she'll kick her shoes off when doing impromptu performances. Her backup musicians also perform barefoot to fit her motif.
• Vocaloid Oliver has bandages on his feet but no shoes or socks. Word of God says that this was a largely aesthetic choice, as apparently he looked "too girly with shoes". As a result, the "youthful innocence" version of this trope is a common Fanon portrayal of his character.
• German singer Danja Atari has very few public photos where she isn't barefoot.
• Raquel del Rosario of the Spanish band El Sueño de Morfeo often performs barefoot or wearing barefoot sandals.
• Evelyn Glennie, the virtuoso percussionist, often performs barefoot, though for a good reason: she's profoundly deaf and it helps her to feel the music. She even did so during the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
• Lindsey Stirling tends to go barefoot out in both public and nature in her music videos, which involve a lot of skipping and jumping while playing the violin like a pixie.
• Hitomi Yaida, alias Yaiko, became famous as "Hadashi no Hime" ("The Barefoot Princess") because she avoids footwear and prefers to do her live concerts and her music videos barefooted. The cover for her video documentary "Candle in the Lives" even features her bare feet on prominent display on the set where she performed her "Dizzy Dive" music video that day (also while barefoot, of course). One of her music videos also sees her taking off a pair of shoes in the background because they hurt her feet. In fact, in her music video "Chain," she makes a deliberate choice to leave her shoes behind as she exits her house because she'd rather go barefoot. She even spots a pair of shoes on display in a boutique and seems to have a change of heart, but then she scoffs at them. Then the reason why she doffed the shoes becomes clear- they were the proverbial chain preventing her from being free.
• Bobby McFerrin tended to perform barefoot, such as in the music video for "Don't Worry, Be Happy," after his shoes cramped his feet during a concert.
• French singer Barbara Weldens was known for preferring to perform concerts in bare feet, however, the flaws of this approach were tragically demonstrated when she stepped on an exposed piece of electrical equipment and was electrocuted. She was only 35 years old.
• Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine often goes barefoot on stage, in photos, and in her videos. She has stated that "Performing in heels makes you perform very differently to performing in your bare feet. I kind of prefer bare feet."
• Taylor Swift goes barefoot pretty often.
• 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 Mc Nair, Karita Mattila, and particularly Agnes Baltsa all seem to enjoy performing roles barefoot.
• During his Black Sabbath days, Ozzy Osbourne was said to go barefoot since he lived poor as a child.
• Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood promoted going barefoot to gain "chi", eventually appearing shoeless in the music video for "The Numbers".
• Sanketsu Shōjo Sayuri (酸欠少女さユり) started off her Tokyo music career doing street performances in her bare feet and a rain poncho, which she continues to do even after getting mainstream success in Japan. In an interview she mentions that she goes bare-footed on the streets as she feels more connected to the land, though acknowledging her feet do get very dirty.
• Lorde, going along with the summery, earthy vibe of her album "Solar Power," appears barefoot in all of the album's music videos and frequently in live performances promoting it.
• Mariana Vega likes to have bare feet when she performs, because while living in Canada, she developed the habit of walking barefoot in her house and would write and play music as such. She admitted that being able to touch the ground with her bare feet liberates her and allows her to feel in her own skin the vibe and the energy from the crowd. Vega sometimes gets compared to Shakira for the bare feet and the similar styles of music they have. She even appeared on a talk show barefoot and got called out on it. Ironically, one of her family members present in the audience is very fond of shoes.
• Jazz/improvisational singer Linda Manus-Cobine often performs shoeless.
• Tove Lo tends to be shoeless when she sings, as she noted that shoes actually affect her voice, especially those that do not have flat heels.
• True to her name, polka musician Barefoot Becky always goes without shoes.
• Country singer Jake Owen virtually always performs barefoot as part of his "laid-back redneck" vibe, even naming his third album Barefoot Blue Jean Night.
• German-Japanese pianist Alice Sarah Ott plays barefoot a lot.

Pro Wrestling

• Most Wild Samoans wrestle barefoot, to help put over the "island savage" gimmick (exceptions include Rikishi, Manu, Samoa Joe, and The Usos). Rikishi did go barefoot earlier in his career when he was Fatu of The Headshrinkers (WWF) and the Samoan SWAT Team (WCW). In the mid-90s, the Headshrinkers had a gimmick where their manager, Captain Lou Albano, tried to "civilize" them by making them wear boots in the ring, and they had trouble climbing to the top rope and doing other moves because they couldn't get used to not being barefoot.
• 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 there was no time to find or borrow a replacement pair, and from there, it just became his trademark.
• Velvet McIntyre wrestled barefoot during the 80's while she was in the WWF. This was initially because her wrestling boots were stolen, but it quickly became her trademark.
• Matt Riddle wrestles barefoot since he is a former MMA fighter and became accostumed to fighting barefoot.

Sports

• Track and field athletes, as well as road racers, usually wear shoes, but there are some notable exceptions. Abebe Bikila won the 1960 Olympic Marathon in world record time barefoot. Olympic athlete and former world record holder Zola Budd ran many of her races barefoot.

Theatre

• In the Matthew Bourne staging of Sleeping Beauty, Aurora hates wearing anything on her feet. Her first scene as a teenager sees her ripping off her stockings when she's supposed to be getting dressed. She goes on to take off her boots in the middle of a party, scandalising her parents and the other guests.
• Armida in the play A Village Fable. "No shoes, no shoes, I refuse to wear shoes!" is practically her catchphrase.

Webcomics

• Modern MoGal: Levia and her family. In a patreon-exclusive strip, it is shown that shoes made specifically for digitigrade species do exist, they just don't like them.
• Belkar Bitterleaf from The Order of the Stick. Being a halfling, this might as well be a racial ability for him. In his own words, he is "A SEXY SHOELESS GOD OF WAR!"
  Belkar: Pffft. Shoes are for suckers. All part of a big conspiracy on the part of the cobblers.
• Mab from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures. Her official biography once stated that "Mab has a deep-seated dislike of wearing shoes."
• Antimony Carver from Gunnerkrigg Court (picture above) just prefers to get her feet dirty from time to time. Surprisingly, the dirt on her bare feet is actually depicted at times, versus most fiction where the barefoot character's feet remain sparkly clean.
• 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.
• 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 usually prefers to go barefoot because, as she explained in one comic, she loves feeling and exploring what nature has to offer with her feet. However, she does wear shoes when she needs to.
• Sette Frummagen from Unsounded remains barefoot from the first panel where she appears and on. No one really cares enough to bring it up. Word of God states that street children from Sette's hometown of Hanghorse go barefoot habitually, out of a combination of poverty, comfort, stealth, emulation of the sailors they see in the port, and because wearing shoes before winter is likely to get you beaten up by the other kids for "putting on airs". Even though Sette's Da makes plenty of money and is more than able to afford shoes for her, he doesn't want her growing up feeling superior. Plus, Sette just doesn't like wearing shoes at this point.
• The title character of Go Get a Roomie! is a Shameless Fanservice Girl who prefers not to wear anything, but even when she is otherwise fully clothed she still won't put anything on her feet.
  Lillian: [points down at Roomie's bare feet] Aren't you forgetting something?
  Roomie: I am, aren't I? [leaves and comes back a panel later, wearing a headband] NOW I'm ready!
• Sydney Brooks, the titular character of Sydney's Pokémon Adventure, is a happy-go-lucky and ever-barefoot tomboy who became a Pokémon trainer four years late at the age of fourteen. She's never worn shoes because she's spent nearly all of her young life at home and never needed to. As a very young child, she would wear shoes and socks, but switched to bare feet when she got older, presumably to emulate her lazy brother who is also always barefoot. She happily embarked on her journey while remaining barefoot, because it's simply just what she's used to and the most comfortable in. She eventually gets forced into a pair of shoes against her will — a rich girl gave her and her friend Neison tickets for the S.S. Anne as thanks for helping her out, but insisted on giving Sydney a full makeover once aboard, declaring that it would be much too embarrassing for someone of her social status to be seen associating with someone dressed like that. Sydney immediately changes out of the outfit after leaving the ship, though.
• In Yokoka's Quest, Yokoka says in the first Q&A strip that she goes barefoot because she was never given any shoes, but she likes walking barefoot anyway.
• Lee Meadows, the protagonist of Roundhouse. Since she's a Flying Brick, her feet presumably don't need any kind of protection, allowing her to go unshod without any problems. Her habitual shoelessness has only been acknowledged twice so far: In this comic, a bird poops directly onto her foot, prompting her friend to ask if it will get her to finally start wearing shoes, and in this one, she pretends that wearing shoes is her Kryptonite Factor that leaves her completely de-powered in an attempt to fool a couple of crooks into attacking her (though she oversells it a bit too much and they don't fall for it).
• Eureka Seven: Paradox Makers: Claire Hannah is a Played for Drama example: she used to like shoes, but grew adverse to footwear when the sale of a pair of limited edition superhero boots made her neglect her grandmother, who collapsed in her garden, and shortly afterward died on Claire's high school graduation day. Now, she associates her guilt with shoes, and when Claire is alone or relaxing, she prefers to be strictly barefoot.
• The eponymous Yoon Ina, AKA "Nina" of The Barefoot Nina, habitually goes barefoot whenever she can get away with it because she feels liberated when she takes her shoes off. The same applies to her socks.
• Jackie from Cats Way goes barefoot at the start, despite having easy access to shoes. Word of God is that she will start wearing open-toed shoes later in the story.
• Shiro Watanabe of the webcomic K9 is only seen wearing shoes when forced to, to add to his crazy demeanor.
• In Dumbing of Age, Sierra doesn't wear shoes. When Joyce first notices she's barefoot and asks how long that's been the case, Sierra says since sixth grade. She's the Dumbiverse counterpart of an It's Walky! character known only as Tootsi, who was played for fanservice. (Tootsi was a member of SEMME's Squadron 48, the entire joke of which was that they consisted entirely of highly-sexed bisexual girls and Joe.)
• Marine, the protagonist of the Undertale webcomic "The First Human'' takes off her boots shortly before falling into the Underground, and spends the rest of her adventure barefoot, much to the confusion of Flowey and other monsters. In a Q&A, Marine states that she feels more connected to the earth while barefoot, hence why she did it. Although it proves to be a test for her when traveling through Snowdin.

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 DeviantArt site: another Slice of Life story called No Shoes Pizza, and a 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.
• 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.
• A lot of PodFrog's original characters either go barefoot or wear sandals, and his Author Avatar is often drawn barefoot as well.
• JesuOtaku is barefoot more often than not, both in character and out.
  "I tend to walk around barefoot everywhere, even outside. Sometimes I'll even drive barefoot if I know I'm not going anywhere that requires shoes. Of course as Ed in the 4th year movie I was barefoot for a reason, but...yeah. Not often. When I do wear shoes: sandals and flipflops. Socks are rare with me. But my feet are clean! XD"
• Vesta from Beyond the Impossible always goes barefoot. It's even the first thing we learn about her when she’s introduced:
  Vesta is a very strange waitress: she never wears shoes. She's also immortal.
• Joanna Martin and Millie Smythe, two of Inspector Spacetime's associates. Joanna loathes shoes, and as they fall in love Millie follows her eventual wife's lead, although she once had All Women Love Shoes tendencies (and occasionally still does). They go on to form a team called the Barefoot Bounty Hunters.
• Dina M Nealey prefers to go barefoot whenever possible, a preference shared by many of the characters in her work. Most notably, her Author Avatar Chibi-Dina is almost always drawn barefoot, and none of her Fae characters ever wear shoes or socks.
• Mary of Hi I'm Mary Mary is almost always barefoot. The only time she dons footwear of her own volition is a single occasion of her wearing socks in order to relieve her boredom by sliding across the hardwood floor of the house, and she takes them off once she's gotten bored of that too. She does wear boots when in the Garden, but they are part of an automatic Instant Costume Change that happens to her upon entering it. She does not seem to actually own any part of her "Garden outfit" since she can't find any of it in the house. Fittingly, in the ending she puts on her boots, getting ready to leave the house.
• A lot of the female characters in ChipmunkRaccoonOz's Pokemon-related fan works have a strong preference for going barefoot as often as they can, and some canon characters in other fanfics are depicted without shoes as well. Chipmunk himself also has a preference for going barefoot whenever possible.
• Alex Apollonov of I did a thing is noticeably barefoot in almost all of his videos, even at times you'd think he'd want to wear shoes, like when he works with machinery in his garage, or visits a beekeeper (though the beekeeper himself was only wearing flip-flops...), or cooks meat on the pavement in the Australian summer. It sometimes gets lampshaded, either when he injures himself this way or acknowledges the foot fetishists that follow his channel. When Alex took part in Creator Clash, a Youtuber boxing event, he wanted to fight barefoot but the boxing commission overseeing the matches wouldn't let him.
• For a video, YouTuber Loser Ana spent a day without shoes, which she seemed to regret. Months later, she did it again, and again, until she started going barefoot full-time, even making a video to celebrate her newfound lifestyle. While she does wear shoes in Winter, they come off as soon as Spring arrives.
• Dodger of Press Heart To Continue prefers to walk everywhere barefoot. She's admitted frequently on camera she loves being barefoot all the time, even when told she needs shoes onset or wandering over hot concrete. She'll even opt for bare feet in the snow. And rather adorably, her husband is just as much of a barefooter as she is.
  Dodger: Pretty much every opportunity I get, I walk around barefoot. ... I just love being barefoot. Jeannie hates being barefoot - hates it. She doesn't care if other people are barefoot, but she personally hates being barefoot and I cannot fathom that because I, like... I feel like I'm in my natural element when I'm barefoot. Um, it just feels like the most natural for me by far, but I'm a Hobbit, so it kinda makes sense.
• Roadkill: David Freiberger will take any excuse to wear sandals or flip-flops instead of shoes (even if it's really impractical).
• Adriene Mishler of Yoga With Adriene almost always barefoot in her videos, although it's kind of understandable, as she is a yoga instructor.
• All the human (or human-like) characters in Escape From The Hypno Jungle go barefoot. For Ali and Mika, this is because they were born in the primitive Hypno-Jungle, and thus have never worn footwear. For Yuki and Kate, this is because they lost their clothes when they were stranded in the jungle, including their footwear.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Being a blind Earthbender, Toph uses the vibrations in the ground to sense around her. Toph does not like wearing shoes or having her feet touched, because doing so affects her vision. When she does have to wear shoes as a disguise, she kicks their soles off so her feet still make direct contact with the ground.
  • Earthbenders in general tend to be averse to footwear, beyond sole-less coverings for the top of their feet. All Earthbenders seem unperturbed by rough terrain and a large portion of their bending is based on stances and foot work to manipulate the earth.
• Cricket on Big City Greens hates wearing shoes. Even at a dance, when he's otherwise in formal wear, he's barefoot. The only time he willingly wears shoes is in cold weather, treating it the same as wearing a jacket, or when playing a specific sport such as football or baseball. This becomes a major plot point in the Season 3 episode "No Service", as it prevents him from entering Sip 'n Snak. He even claims this as a principle in his life and he only wears them for needed events such as in the snow or playing ball. When he borrows Tilly's shoes to get the free drink he wanted, he realizes he can't break this principle and denies the drink.
• Several of the children in Craig of the Creek go barefoot:
  • The Scratchless One, who indeed doesn't wear much of anything.
  • Roger the Bridge Troll. Trolls don't wear shoes, after all.
  • Wildernessa, who styles herself as a Nature Hero - though she does wear proper footwear in cold weather.
  • The Sewer Queen, which makes sense considering she and her subjects always play in the water.
  • Zoe, the guardian of Cardboard City. Even in the flashback of her first meeting with Carter, she was barefoot.
  • The Muddy Buddies. Again, shoes would mostly get in the way when playing with mud.
• DuckTales (2017): While the majority of the cast are Barefoot Cartoon Animals as usual, Dewey is the first to explicitly state that he does not like wearing shoes, after trying out a pair. He even awkwardly stumbles around in pain while wearing shoes, though this seems to be because they were the wrong size for him.
• Peter Griffin from Family Guy went through this as a phase, going as far as to refer to shoes as "foot prisons". Since it was a Cutaway Gag, though, it's unknown if it actually happened.
• Kaeloo: Played with. Kaeloo is a Funny Animal who does not wear any type of clothing or accessories, but it is explicitly stated that her being barefoot is a choice she makes because she's not a fan of shoes.
• The natives on Mike, Lu & Og don't have access to shoes, until one episode where a crate of them washes up on shore and they go nuts for them. The shoes end up causing them problems, so they give them up. Mike, on the other hand, is a Tomboy and therefore doesn't like shoes (in the sense that All Women Love Shoes), but other than in the aforementioned episode, she is the only one who actually wears them.
• Nisa from Mission Odyssey doesn't wear shoes because she likes being barefoot. However, in episode 17, she and the others visit an icy land, and when they enter a kingdom warmed by magic crystals, the sweltering floor is too hot for her bare feet to handle. She's then given a pair of fur-lined shoes when their ruler notes she has sensitive feet unlike them, who have adapted to the conditions. Unfortunately, the citizens are all huge in stature and the shoes fall off quite easily, so she goes snooping around in the hope of finding a pair more her petite size and stumbles upon something she wasn't meant to see, resulting in her being taken captive. Ironically, the one time she wears shoes, the rest of her friends are alerted to the fact she's in trouble when one of the shoes falls off again as she's carted off to a dungeon and they find it in the snow. She reverts back to being a barefooter after this adventure. A couple of other characters don't wear shoes among the crew, either, being inhuman species.
• Tommy Pickles from Rugrats (1991) is almost always seen barefoot, in contrast to most of the other babies on the show. It is explained in the A Day in the Life of Tommy book that the reason for this is because Tommy likes to feel the mud squish between his toes. The episodes in which Tommy does wear shoes are few and far between. This does not apply to his eleven-year-old counterpart in the All Grown Up! spin-off.
• Jesse from Solar Opposites. As she says in "The Unstable Grey Hole":
  Jesse: I like humans, but I hate shoes. Like, how are we supposed to taste the ground?
• Star Trek: The Animated Series introduces Lt. M'Ress, a Cat Folk alien who joins the Enterprise crew. She exemplies this trope as well as Barefoot Cartoon Animal; the official explanation is that she doesn't need (or want) footwear because of her thick pawpads, although the animators don't bother drawing them when her soles are visible.
• Tangled: The Series calls a lot more attention to Rapunzel's preference for going barefoot everywhere than the original movie did (which mentioned it a grand total of once, and even then not explicitly). "The Way of the Willow" introduces Rapunzel's aunt Willow, who shares a great many personality traits with her, including going barefoot. Another episode featured O.O.C. Is Serious Business, where Rapunzel willingly wearing shoes is a sign to Eugene that something is very wrong. By the final season, she's even stopped wearing them in the snow (or any other winter clothing for that matter, just wearing her standard Limited Wardrobe instead) while in the earlier seasons she would bundle up and put on some boots.
• ThunderCats: The Drifter, a Rascally Rabbit, seems a typical Barefoot Cartoon Animal, but a flashback reveals that he was The One Who Wears Shoes until a traumatic event caused him to abandon the trait, and acquire a more disheveled appearance, with tattered clothes and Messy Hair.
• The title character of Canadian/French series Tupu is the "Wild Girl of Central Park". As such she generally wears a T-shirt and slacks but no shoes. Her logo is a bare footprint.

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