Friends, it’s that time of year when it’s getting a little too cold for the dogs to be out. Naturally, we’ve started gravitating towards our winter shoes. However, we’ve kinda had sneaker fatigue after the Samba surge of 2022/2023. Boots and Mary Janes feel a little too dark and chunky for some outfits. Luckily for us, the sneaker trends for 2026 are here to liven things up a bit.
Yes, it’s time to step out of your go-to white sneakers and try something with a little more oomph. We’re talking animal prints, retro styles, franken-shoes, sneakerinas, utilitarian-core, metallics, and even going as far as trying to accessorise your sneakers.
So strap in, or should we say lace up? And read on for the new sneaker trends worth adding to your cart.
The 2026 Sneaker Trends Worth Shopping
Animal print
Animal prints started becoming huge back in the 1950s (thanks to Christian Dior), and later again in the ’80s. But it didn’t seep into sneaker culture in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Nike released the iconic Air Max 1 Supreme Animal Pack. It was one of their iconic athletic running shoes, but in a mix of faux leopard, zebra, and tiger hair. From there, prints became a staple of Y2K skate and street style.
By the time the 2010s rolled around, prints were deemed too loud and too tacky, and they started to die off.
That was until designer Grace Wales Bonner dropped a highly coveted leopard-print pony-hair Adidas Samba in 2023. Suddenly, loud animal prints were cool again, and last year’s mob-wife aesthetic only cemented it further. Now, you’ll find sneakers washed in everything from the classic leopard and cheetah prints through to cowhide, zebra stripes, and embossed snakeskin.
It’s not only about patterns being printed on leather or fabric, but textures also play a huge role in the resurgence. Maximist fashion wants more from their shoes, and brands are leaning heavily into tactile materials to offer something more.
Case in point: some of the most popular shoes right now are the Puma Speedcats and the Adidas SL 72, both of which come in a range of animal prints.
Prints are also super fun to style, if you’re looking to add a little something to an otherwise monochrome winter wardrobe.
Sneakerinas (or ballet flat sneakers)
The Sneakerina trend is the definition of ‘ugly-chic’. The minute Louis Vuitton officially dropped a shoe named the ‘Icon Sneakerina’, Google searches for the term skyrocketed by 1,300 per cent. They’ve undoubtedly become the breakout shoe over the last few seasons, mainly because they solve that awkward wardrobe gap (aka the season we’re in now) when it’s too warm for chunky boots but too cold to wear sandals or slides.
After appearing on runways for Prada, Simone Rocha, and Vivaia, celebrities like Bella Hadid only had to be spotted in sneakerinas once for them to become a viral must-have. Brands like Puma and Onitsuka Tiger have been right at the epicentre of both trends — the colourful, low-profile shoe era and the newer Sneakerina movement.
If you’ve got ‘clean girl’ fatigue and can’t stand the sight of white sneakers anymore, Sneakerinas are an excellent alternative. Styling them is an intentional choice, and one that looks effortlessly cool with baggy jeans, long jorts, wide-leg trousers, or even scrunch socks.
Ready to slip on a pair?
Sneaker accessorising
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: we’re bored with the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic. It leaves very little room for authenticity, character and charm. But the trend of customising your sneakers (via accessories) is here to set us free. You’ve got the double-lace effect (thank you, Miu Miu), sneaker charms, and ballerina-style ribbon laces — all easy, affordable ways to level up any basic sneakers you’ve got lying around.
The double-lace trend started when Miuccia Prada sent models down the runway in Miu Miu x New Balance 530 SL sneakers threaded with two entirely coloured laces, stacked on top of each other and tied separately. Naturally, people became obsessed with it and immediately started adding more laces to their carts.
We’ve seen the charm trend creeping into fashion over the last few years, so it was only a matter of time before shoes became the next option for accessorising. The left and right should be styled differently, whether that’s with a dangly charm or a little clip-on sitch. It’s all about reinfocing that “I just threw this on, I didn’t try too hard” energy that dictates modern street style.
Sounds kinda fun, right?
Retro Revival
The fashion week street style scene right now is a masterclass in fashion archaeology. Show-goers have completely abandoned the space-age, hyper-futuristic chunky dad shoes of the late 2010s. Instead, everyone is lacing up hyper-specific archival throwbacks like the 1970s thin-soled track shoe, 1980s classic tennis and bowling shoes, and early 2000s running tech favourites.
The main reason these retro sneakers are working so well at fashion week comes down to a styling trick called the Wrong Shoe Theory (coined by stylist Allison Bornstein).
Instead of wearing a predictable shoe that matches the vibe of the outfit, the retro revival is about intentionally choosing the “wrong” sneaker — like pairing a bright red Puma Speedcat with a delicate lace skirt, or a ’70s nylon track shoe with a corporate pantsuit to break up the seriousness of it all. Think, right outfit, wrong sneaker.
Utilitarian-core
Right now, fashion is living in a state of total duality: you’re either wearing a wafer-thin ballet sneaker, or you are wearing a high-tech shoe engineered to help you survive some Apex level shit. The utilitarian-core sneaker trend (the evolution of Gorpcore) has people wearing chunky, outdoor-style sneakers with clean, tailored looks for that comfort-turned-high-fashion vibe.
Most people would agree that Salomons are the blueprint, with silhouettes like the XT-6, ACS Pro, and the newer XT-Whisper treating the streets like a runway. While other sneaker brands like Nike, On Running, Hoka, Asics, and New Balance are giving the trend a red-hot crack, too.
It’s like the chunky, dad shoe got hotter and more muscular.
Frankenshoe era
Of course, fashion’s solution to sneaker fatigue would be a “Frankenshoe” era. They’re taking feminine shoes like ballet flats, Mary Janes, and ’90s mules and blending them with high-performance sneaker engineering. The result? Well, it’s interesting.
We’ve noticed two main styles: sporty Mary Janes (girly yet gritty) and sneaker mules (think slip-on sneakers).
The Cecilie Bahnsen x ASICS collab really dragged this look into fashion girlies’ wardrobes. It wasn’t long before brands like Adidas, Puma, Miu Miu, and Bottega Veneta released their own versions. And once celebs like Dua Lipa and Bella Hadid slipped on a pair, they were guaranteed to start showing up everywhere.
If you’re not familiar with the style, it basically replaces traditional shoelaces with a cutout vamp and a strap (or two, or three) across the top of the foot, and features a trainer-style sole. She’s cute, she’s quirky.
As for the sneaker mule, well, imagine sneakers with the heel cut out, turning them into slip-on shoes. It satisfies our collective laziness while keeping our street-style credentials intact. There’s been a bunch of wild takes on this shoe trend, including A$AP Rocky’s collab with PUMA, the Mostro Mule and Kim Kardashian‘s Nike x SKIMS Rift collab. Both of which sent the internet into a bit of a frenzy.
Metallics, specifically all silver
For the last couple of years, all it took to look effortlessly chic was a crisp, pristine pair of white sneakers. But since we all got collectively bored with the copy-paste minimalism, we’ve turned to silver to spice things up a bit. It also feels like a millennial designer somewhere was feeling particularly nostalgic for the space-age Y2K era, and thus, the all-silver sneakers made their comeback.
The best thing about the metallic trend is that it isn’t tied to just one shoe silhouette. It has successfully crept into every single sneaker trend we’ve talked about today. And given Bella Hadid just touched down at the Cannes wearing a pair of metallic silver Speedcats, I’d say we’re going to be seeing a lot more of them.
Well, it looks like we’ve given you a whole lot of shopping to do. Have at it! Oh, and if you’re looking to support some great Aussie shoe brands, you can find some over here.
Lead Image: adidas / Betts / carlottaconstant Instagram
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