Lyst's trend data for this month has the Nike Air Rift up 35 percent in demand, month on month. Not a new Jordan. Not a Travis Scott collab. A school-shoe silhouette with a strap over the middle, brought back from the dead and rebuilt around a running shoe's Air unit. The Mary Jane sneaker is having a real moment, and for once the moment isn't chunky, isn't gorpcore, and isn't another retro Samba story.
Except it kind of is another Samba story — because the Adidas Samba Jane is sitting right there among the season's hottest products too, per Marie Claire's trend report. Which raises the obvious question if you've been following what's already blowing up in India: didn't we just do this with sneakerinas? Not quite. And the difference is worth understanding before you spend money on either.
The Case for Mary Jane
A real Mary Jane sneaker has a specific DNA: low-top profile, a squared-off toe, and a strap buckled across the top of the foot — a shape borrowed directly from early-1900s school shoes, now welded onto a sneaker sole. That structure is the whole appeal. It's "feminine-meets-sporty" in a way a soft ballet flat can't fake, according to E! Online's breakdown of the trend.
Nike's take is the one worth paying attention to. The Air Rift Breathe ($125) keeps the Rift's Tabi-style split toe and adds brogue-like perforation detail along with genuine Nike Air cushioning underfoot — this isn't a flat dressed up as a sneaker, it's an actual hybrid, and it shows in the price and the demand curve. The NikeSKIMS Rift Mesh ($150), Kim Kardashian's version of the same shoe, has pulled the trend further into mainstream shopping carts than a straight Nike release usually manages on its own.
Adidas is playing the volume game instead. The Samba Jane runs $100, the Tokyo MJ x Liberty London collab sits at $90, and the Barreda Mary Jane comes in at $70 — three price points on the same silhouette, which is exactly how Adidas turned the regular Samba into a monster in the first place. Puma's Speedcat Ballet Sneaker ($80) and Puma Replicatch Mary Jane ($69.99) chase the same crowd from a different angle. Vans, Reebok and Converse have all quietly slid Mary Jane versions of their classics ($70–75) onto shelves too, and none of them are pretending to be anything more than an accessible take on a moment that started higher up the price ladder. At the sportier end, Salomon's Rx Marie-Jeanne ($130) and Onitsuka Tiger's Mexico 66 TGRS ($217) prove this isn't just a fashion-brand fad — actual performance labels are building Mary Jane versions of their own archive runners, which is usually the signal that a trend has legs beyond one season.
The Case for Ballet and Sneakerina Styles
We covered the sneakerina trend when it first landed in India, and it's not going anywhere — but it's chasing a different feeling entirely. Ballet-flat sneakers borrow from Repetto and the dance-flat tradition: soft uppers, minimal structure, built to look weightless. There's no strap doing structural work, no split toe, no brogue detailing. It's pure delicacy, and on Instagram that reads beautifully.
The problem is exactly what makes it beautiful. A soft ballet-flat sneaker has almost no armor against a rough pavement, let alone a monsoon puddle. Mary Janes at least inherit some backbone from the strap and the squared toe box — they were originally built for kids running around a schoolyard, and that DNA hasn't fully disappeared even in the $975 Miu Miu Plume version.
What This Costs If You're Buying From India
The accessible end of this trend is genuinely accessible here. Adidas Samba Jane and Puma Speedcat both sit close enough to existing Samba and Suede pricing that VegNonVeg, Superkicks and the adidas India app should carry them without much delay — expect somewhere around ₹9,000–11,000 on shelf once local MRP factors in the usual import math, similar to what regular Sambas already retail for.
The luxury end is a different conversation. Miu Miu's Plume ($975) and Bottega Veneta's Orbit Flash Suede ($990) convert to roughly ₹93,000–94,500 before customs even enters the picture. Add luxury goods duty and IGST through a personal shopper or import service, and you're comfortably past ₹1.3 lakh landed. Simone Rocha's $1,005 ballerina sneaker and Marni's $575 Mary Jane sit in the same bracket once shipping and duty are factored in.
What We'd Actually Buy
Honestly, the luxury tier isn't worth it. A ₹93,000 shoe that shares its entire silhouette language with a ₹9,000 Samba Jane is paying for a label, not a design leap — the customs math alone turns it into a rich-girl tax nobody needs to fall for. Lyst senior editor Morgane Speed put it well when discussing hybrids like the Nike Shox Mary Jane: the appetite here is for genuine crossover design, not just a strap glued onto an existing shoe. That's the Nike Air Rift's whole argument, and it's the one worth actually spending on.
Between Mary Jane and sneakerina for the Indian street, Mary Jane wins for anyone who actually commutes in these — the strap and structure survive a scooter ride and a monsoon shower in a way a ballet flat won't. Sneakerina still wins if you're dressing for a saree-and-sneaker moment at a wedding function, where the soft silhouette pairs better with flowing fabric than a squared-off strap shoe does. As Sneaker History founder Nick Engvall put it, women's sneaker culture "doesn't need to borrow" from the men's side to have real momentum right now — and this entire trend, both halves of it, is proof of that.
If you want the look without the luxury tax, the Adidas Samba Jane is the one to actually chase — check what's live at SNKRS CART's Adidas section and grab it before the India price catches up to global demand.
