Rihanna turns Nike's Moon Shoe into summer's buzziest sneaker

Rihanna has turned Nike’s Moon Shoe into the sneaker everyone will be talking about this summer. Photographed shopping in Beverly Hills on June 24 and 25, 2026, she wore the pink iteration from Nike’s collaboration with Jacquemus, and the sighting landed with the kind of instant force that can move a retro runner from insider favorite to full-on It shoe.

That is exactly the lane the Moon Shoe now occupies. Nike says the style is the fourth footwear collaboration between the brand and Simon Porte Jacquemus, following the Air Max 1, J Force 1 and Air Humara. The designer’s version keeps the low, close-to-the-ground waffle sole that made the original famous, while pushing the silhouette toward a more delicate, modern ballet aesthetic. It is a sharp formula for right now: a shoe with archive credibility, but soft enough in shape to read fresh with slip skirts, cropped trousers and summer dresses.

The Moon Shoe’s story starts in 1971, when Bill Bowerman, obsessed with improving his athletes’ footwear, looked to his wife’s waffle iron for inspiration. Nike’s archive says that idea helped produce the first version of the Moon Shoe, a design that would shape the future of running for decades. HISTORY notes that Nike received a patent for its waffle-soled trainers on February 26, 1974, a milestone that helped formalize the technology behind one of the brand’s most recognizable signatures.

The Jacquemus x Nike Moon Shoe first became available at Jacquemus on September 29, 2025, then at SNKRS and select Nike retail locations on October 6, 2025. The Spring 2026 follow-up arrived on March 8 and 9, 2026, in three colorways: Soft Pearl, Fauna Brown and Aluminum Pink. Coverage of the drop placed the retail price at $180, a relatively accessible entry point for a fashion-collab sneaker with this much cultural reach.

Rihanna’s pair has extra momentum because she is not the only name pushing the style into circulation. Dua Lipa was previously photographed in a Butter Yellow version, and BLACKPINK’s Lisa has also worn the Moon Shoe, giving the silhouette a cross-continental celebrity life that few retro runners achieve. That visibility fits the bigger sneaker picture for 2026, where slim, minimalist shapes with strong fashion credentials are winning over bulkier pairs. The Moon Shoe feels calibrated for this moment: archival, light on the foot, and built to travel fast through social feeds and summer wardrobes alike.