“Summertime always brings a more playful approach to footwear with our customers embracing colour, texture and statement styles,” says Brigitte Chartrand, Net-a-porter.com chief buying and merchandising officer, who highlights the baby blue ruched Chloé mules as an initial sellout, with a restock and a new tortoiseshell colourway planned for pre-fall.
Over at MyTheresa, the sugary Chloé slippers are up against Tory Burch Mellow Mary Janes and Loewe’s transparent Emily boots – familiar styles all delivering an unexpected flourish. “For me, that’s what makes these styles so compelling: they bring personality and playfulness, instantly transforming even the most neutral look,” says Tiffany Hsu, chief buying & group fashion ventures officer at Mytheresa, who notes customers’ taste levels always skew eccentric at this time of year.
What’s next on the weird shoe agenda? “Divisive, but it also looks like it’s set to be another Vibram FiveFinger summer, as quarter-on-quarter demand for the style is up 250 per cent,” shares a Lyst spokesperson, while a spring data report shared that pony hair shoes were up 103 per cent quarter-on-quarter, faux fur ballerina pumps saw a 67 per cent search spike, and ballerina Crocs enjoyed a 418 per cent surge in popularity. Looks like 2026 is not the year of the sensible court shoe after all.
Ignore the over-quoted and overly-cautious “wrong shoe theory” and wear summer’s quirky clipcloppers anyway you like. As Paloma Elsesser recently told us, summer is about embracing a vibe shift. “I shed the practicalities of everyday life and dress more instinctively, more indulgently,” said the model whose closet we’d most like to steal. “It becomes less about efficiency and more about expression.” A fabulous, frivolous shoe says everything.
