It's about time in the celebrity style calendar when stars nail down their go-to shoe trend of the year. Kendall Jenner adores high-vamp flats and Repetto ballerinas rarely leave Kaia Gerber's soles. Rihanna, meanwhile, is styling what could be Puma's biggest sneaker of 2026.
The Grammy winner debuted mysterious, low-profile trainers on February 10 in L.A. At the time, her baggy Puma sweatpants hid every defining feature. By a Feb. 15 outing in New York City, she styled the gumsole sneakers beneath another pair of shoe-obstructing sweats. Rihanna's beige, wide-leg joggers coordinated with an ERL's fleece take on the quarter-zip trend. She stacked an equally-oversize aviator jacket from Vaquera on top. Its glossy, sage green exterior juxtaposed the hood's white fur trim.
Her hood's dramatic shearling was a near perfect shade match to her nameless Puma sneakers. Ivory suede decorated each toe box, before the brand's Formstrip trademark (curved bands of black leather) decorated each outer sidewall. The circa-1958 Formstrip is a Puma patent on models like the Speedcat, Palermo, and Fenty Avanti (to name a few). It also appears on the $70 Club II Era Sneaker, featuring the same ivory toeboxes, black Formstrips, and gumsoles as Rihanna's Pumas.
Before her Feb. 10 shopping spree with her son, Riot, Rihanna's sneaker-clad sightings had been slim to none in 2026. Instead of sourcing her Puma sneaker rack, she's been favoring Amina Muaddi stilettos, anti-Rihanna loafers, and tiger-print Alaïa pumps.
Fans last saw the "Breakin' Dishes" singer wearing easy-to-ID sneakers on Jan. 4 in Barbados: Miu Miu's $1,350 snakeskin best-sellers. (The Rihanna Effect sold them out faster than you can say sneakerina.) Since then, she's maintained her hiatus in Paris, NYC, West Hollywood, and even L.A., once her favorite hotspot to debut new trainers.
If any label can revive Rihanna's sneaker streak, it's Puma. (She's been a loyal brand ambassador since 2014, after all.) With two wears under her belt, these secret shoes are already on sneakerheads' radar. Celebrities say slim sneakers like Rihanna's are on track to knock the dad-core trend down a peg in 2026. If Rihanna has any say in the matter (which she certainly does), these will pick up where the Puma Speedcats left off last year.
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