Weird shoes are 2026’s Xiaohongshu viral opportunity

Strange shoes have been one of 2026’s biggest stories on Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote). Chanel’s soleless Cruise sandals and Chloé’s jelly mules have filled Chinese social feeds this year, with sculptural heels from independent designers close behind. On Xiaohongshu, the hashtag #nicheshoes has drawn 1 billion views and #differentshoes 244.4 million. Global data points the same way. Skims’ jelly shoes ranked third and Chloé’s jelly mules fifth among the hottest products in the Lyst Index for Q2 2026, while Chanel, maker of the year’s most debated shoe, was named the hottest brand for a second straight quarter. Even Jeffrey Campbell’s wedges filled with doll heads, first sold in 2014, resurfaced on Chinese feeds this month. “Playful footwear is resonating globally because fashion has an incredible ability to normalize the previously unwearable,” Barbara Janeczek, curation manager at Lyst, told Jing Daily. “Demand for ‘weird shoe’ styles has grown almost fourfold since 2022.” With the fourth quarter under way and brands finalizing their Spring 2027 plans, odd footwear looks like one of the clearest ways to stand out with Chinese Gen Z. What made 2026 the year of weird shoes? This year, Gen Z fashion in China has moved away from quiet luxury and toward maximalism. K-pop girl group KiiiKiii’s more-is-more “KiiiKiiicore” styling has spread widely, and the Y2K look known as “China Too Cool” has made a comeback. Weird shoes are one of the clearest expressions of that shift. Artificial intelligence is part of the story. Social feeds now carry so many generated images that real products get measured against them, and that has fed an appetite for cartoonish design that feels otherworldly. Designs that have caught on with rednote users, including GCDS’ Morso heels and Charles Jeffrey Loverboy’s banana-peel boots, first shown in 2024, can pass at a glance for a playful AI illusion. The double take seems to be the point: users stop scrolling to check whether the shoe is real, then comment to ask. Pricing data points the same way. A Summer 2026 trend report from Lectra’s Retviews, which tracks European fashion retail, found shoppers buying less but prioritizing quality, durability and versatility, a shift the company frames as value overtaking volume. Shoppers who spend less but pay more per item have more reason to want design that stands out. Shoppers also say they will pay for products they can trust. In its Fashion Retail Outlook 2026, published in January, PwC’s consultancy arm Strategy& found that 74% of consumers surveyed would pay a premium for fully traceable, sustainability-verified fashion, including 26% who would accept a premium of up to 20%. Meme fashion supplies the rest of the explanation. Luxury houses have trolled the internet with deliberately odd products for years, because a product built to provoke sparks debate, and debate spreads. Maison Margiela’s split-toe Tabi, first released in 1988, set the template: a mark of cool among insiders and a strange, hoof-like object to everyone else. The most viral shoes on Xiaohongshu in 2026 1. Chanel’s shoeless shoes Matthieu Blazy’s sandals for Chanel’s Cruise 2026/27 collection, shown in Biarritz on April 28, cover little more than the heel with what the house called a “barefoot heel cap.” They became the year’s most argued-over pair, and in China the reaction leaned toward mockery. The noise did Chanel little harm. The house stayed at No. 1 on the Lyst Index in Q2, though Lyst credited its Coco Beach and Métiers d’Art collections rather than the shoe. A sandal built to seem absent proved impossible to miss. 2. Jelly mules: Chloé & Skims Chloé took the cheap plastic jelly sandal and gave it a luxury label. Its peep-toe jelly mules sell for 520 euros ($583) and ranked fifth among Lyst’s hottest products in Q2. On rednote they work as a nostalgia piece and as an easy way into the house. Skims outranked Chloé with the same idea. Its $58 jelly shoes placed third on the same list, and the hashtag #jellyshoes has 38 million views on Xiaohongshu. 3. Fishnet shoes, led by Alaïa The Chinese-language hashtag for fishnet shoes has 19.5 million views on Xiaohongshu, and Alaïa owns the look: #alaiashoes has 9 million views, most of them for its fishnet styles. Newer labels are following, including Abra, the Spanish accessories brand founded in 2020 by Abraham Ortuño Perez, whose ballet pump is half net and half classic flat. 4. Vibram FiveFingers Vibram got there before the 2026 wave. Its FiveFingers V-Soul ranked fifth among Lyst’s hottest products in Q2 2025, and the toe shoe, built for barefoot running, has since crossed fully into fashion. It has also had a long run on Chinese social media. 5. Bite and claw heels: GCDS and Naomi Gilon First shown on GCDS’ Fall/Winter 2022 runway, the Morso heel turned the shoe into a shock statement, its sculpted mouth and teeth drawing as much horror as admiration. The brand later extended the style to unisex sizing, from EU 36 to 46. GCDS put the Morso at the center of its Spring/Summer 2026 campaign, and the design still circulates on Xiaohongshu. So do Belgian ceramic artist Naomi Gilon’s monstrous heels with mangled toenails, which have also gained traction on the platform. They show how footwear can capture attention and go viral through shock value alone. Spring 2027 doubles down Spring 2027 runways suggest brands have taken note. Victoria Beckham introduced a hand-painted “floating” sandal with a carved-out wedge heel, a lift that seems to hover. Stella McCartney sent out loafers and stilettos in clear finishes, a natural next step from the jelly trend. Blazy’s Chanel went further with heels carrying pea pods, an egg and small gardening figures, close-up, playful details that suit Xiaohongshu’s appetite for food-inspired fashion. Smaller independent labels are using shoes to get noticed too. Mexican designer Patricio Campillo sent a kitchen-mop shoe down his label Campillo’s Spring 2027 runway, and it has sparked conversation, though the brand’s Xiaohongshu hashtag had only 5,000 views at the time of writing. Naomi Gilon, Abra and Yichun Liu already show that one distinctive shape can earn a young label more reach in China than a full collection. Online attention fades fast, which makes the Tabi the stronger model. Margiela turned provocation into a signature that has lasted nearly four decades, while the renewed interest in Jeffrey Campbell’s doll-head wedges shows that strange designs can find a second life. “Shapes once seen as eccentric, like the Tabi, are now so ubiquitous that a split toe barely registers as strange, so the goalposts keep moving. Once everyone is comfortable with the weird thing, brands and shoppers look for something weirder,” said Janeczek. For brands planning 2027 in China, the challenge is turning an odd shoe into a lasting franchise. The Tabi suggests how: one recognizable shape, reworked season after season, so the internet always has something new to talk about.

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Weird shoes are 2026’s Xiaohongshu viral opportunity