In a 2024 sport of “I Spy,” Adidas Sambas would have been the best pair of sneakers to identify. But by 2025, rarer fashions stepped up within the rankings.
All yr, celeb sneakerheads traded best-sellers for pairs solely acknowledged by eagle-eyed lovers (or Google Image Search). “Styles like Adidas Sambas or Onitsuka Tiger’s Mexico 66 may be fan favorites, but they are also everywhere,” StockX‘s Brendan Dunnesenior director of buyer group and engagement, tells me over e mail. “That ubiquity pushed consumers to seek out new releases that have yet to see widespread adoption, or exclusive styles that feel more unique.”
So in 2025, A-listers’ largest flex wasn’t merely discovering a sneaker that coordinated with their five-figure designer bag or off-the-runway outfit. It was monitoring down a brand new or retro sneaker that hardly anybody else had.
Fashion women instantly acknowledged Rihanna’s Pumas from a well-known ’90s collaboration.
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In early September, Rihanna acquired her fingers on circa-1998 Spike Turf Sneakers from Puma’s collaboration with Jil Sander. The white trainers stood out for his or her cleat-like soles, opposite to the Puma Speedcats and Avantis already on Rihanna’s shoe rack.
It appears Rihanna—the model’s most loyal ambassador—debuted the cleat sneakers to tease the March 2026 return of Puma x Jil Sander. The labels introduced their second collaboration simply weeks after Rihanna took her archival pair for a stroll.
A month prior, Rihanna pulled one other sneaker out of retirement: Puma x Ottolinger Mostro sneakers, to match the yellow underlay of her classic Issey Miyake Spring 2001. With neon-green soles, these are a few of the extra vibrant Pumas in her assortment (proper subsequent to her blue Speedcat and Mostro Ecstasy sneakers, anyway). Rihanna first styled the metallic silver sneakers in July 2024, 4 months after they hit cabinets. The red-and-silver shade joined her closet shortly after.
Rihanna’s Puma x Ottolinger Mostros had been not possible to overlook in L.A.
(Image credit score: The Image Direct)
Rihanna’s uncommon Puma assortment is one thing of a piece requirement: As a designer, she typically releases items beneath the Fenty x Puma umbrella. But not each celeb wanted an official contract to trot out a uncommon collaboration. Take Jennifer Lawrence, who acquired her fingers on a limited-edition pair of New Balance’s 1906Rs designed with Aimé Leon Dore.
Lawrence wore her inexperienced and bronze pair on repeat throughout her second being pregnant. The Dore’s preppy streetwear blended seamlessly with New Balance’s best-selling silhouette; now, pairs from the collab fetch as much as $325 on the resale market.
This is not the final New Balance collab to enter the A-list enviornment. “Since then, the silhouette has continued to evolve through additional partnerships with Kith, Jack Harlow, Comme des Garçons, and Salehe Bembury, solidifying the 1906R as one of the brand’s most ubiquitous styles,” Dunne of StockX provides.
Jennifer Lawrence’s New Balances are nonetheless on the high of sneakerheads’ want lists.
(Image credit score: Backgrid)
Some celebrities, like Dua Lipa, tapped an in depth designer pal to construct out their sneaker assortment. In mid-November, she ended her five-year Nike hiatus with headline-making Moon Shoes—from a collaboration along with her shut pal, Simone Porte Jacquemus.
Dunne referred to as the retro slip-ons “a Jacquemus-stamped answer to the recent slim sneaker trend.” The authentic design, nonetheless, is 53 years previous. The Moon Shoes have remained in any other case unmanufactured since Nike’s co-founder Bill Bowerman introduced them on the U.S. Olympics Trials in 1972. By the time Jacquemus and Nike had been becoming a member of forces for a partnership almost 50 years later, the French designer determined it was time to carry the archival type again.
It was a savvy transfer. The reworked sneaker “landed at a middle ground between sneaker nerds and fashion enthusiasts,” Dunne defined. And, it bought out in minutes after two restocks.
Dua Lipa took to Brazil in her new Nike x Jacquemus Moon Shoes.
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Still, Lipa was capable of safe the Moon Shoes within the Alabaster colorway. The once-$180 sneakers are at present shoppable on StockX for $345.
In the midst of the Moon Shoe’s takeover, Jennifer Lopez introduced a seven-year-old Nike collaboration again into the dialog. This yr, the circa-2018 Nike x Off-White Air Presto sneakers turned her signature dance studio footwear.
Each shoe’s block-letter Helvetica script, mesh monochromatic uppers, and pink plastic zip-ties set them aside from the market’s fixed stream of white sneakers. Creative director Virgil Abloh deconstructed the Air Prestos in true Off-White type, 18 years after the mannequin’s authentic launch.
Sure, she was six years late to the Nike x Off-White celebration. But Lopez made up for it in spades, having worn them over 15 instances since April 2025.
Jennifer Lopez’s barely took off the Nike x Off-White sneakers this yr.
(Image credit score: Backgrid)
The reign of the non-obvious sneaker is hardly nearing its finish. Toward the tip of the yr, StockX seen “impressive sales growth” in smaller, “more niche” manufacturers like SauconyMizuno, and Brooks. It appears 2026’s celeb sneaker scene is on observe to proceed final yr’s streak. “This speaks to consumers’ desire to be early adopters of new brands and diversify their closets,” Dunne mentioned.
By this time subsequent yr, a sidewalk sneaker tally would possibly even be Sambas-free.