Margot Robbie makes mesh Mary Janes look airport-ready

Margot Robbie stepped into the airport in beige mesh ballet flats from Alaïa, the kind of shoe most travelers would normally leave for a lunch date, not a security line. The look was polished, slightly impractical, and exactly why it landed. Mesh Mary Janes have enough prettiness to overpower the common-sense airport uniform of sneakers and slides, and Robbie made the case without trying too hard.

The pair she wore sat squarely in Alaïa’s luxury lane. On the brand’s U.S. site, Ballet Flats in Fishnet are listed at $990, while Mary Janes 55 in Fishnet come in at $1,220. Alaïa describes the style as a fishnet flat with a Mary Jane strap and buckle fastening, and Moda Operandi frames it the same way: eyelet mesh trimmed with patent leather, cut into a single-strap silhouette. This is not a utilitarian travel shoe dressed up with fashion language. It is a fashion shoe, period.

That distinction matters because the airport argument has shifted. On July 8, 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that domestic air travelers could keep their shoes on at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, with the change tied to improved screening and a push to speed up lines. Kristi Noem made the announcement, and the old assumption that anything delicate, strappy, or open-weave was a bad security-day choice suddenly felt less fixed. Mesh no longer reads like a mistake by default.

Robbie’s airport appearance also fits the broader spring and summer 2026 shoe cycle, where mesh flats and Mary Janes have moved from niche-editor bait to full-on wardrobe conversation. They are being treated as breathable, cult-favorite, and increasingly celebrity-adjacent, which is exactly how a trend graduates from catnip for fashion people to something that starts showing up in regular wardrobes. The appeal is obvious: a shoe that gives you the softness of a ballet flat, the prettiness of a dress shoe, and just enough skin to feel light in warm weather.

What makes Robbie’s version compelling is that it sits right at the tension point between fantasy and function. Airport style used to be ruled by comfort-first logic, but this is a cleaner, more polished mood, where the outfit matters even in transit. Alaïa’s mesh Mary Janes make that argument in one glance: expensive, airy, a little fussy, and still somehow ready to move.