The Samba had a run that almost nothing in footwear gets. Four years at or near the center of the culture, worn by everyone, copied by everybody. Runs like that end. This one is ending now.
The clearest signal: Samba search interest dropped roughly 32% this year, from around 7.3 million to about 5.0 million. That is not collapse — five million searches is still an enormous number, and the Samba will sell for years. But it is unmistakably a peak in the rearview mirror, and the interesting question is where that attention went.
The honest answer: it fragmented
Most trend pieces want to name a single successor. The truthful version of 2026 is that there isn't one. The attention did not consolidate behind one new silhouette — it scattered across several, and that scattering is itself the trend. The era of one dominant sneaker appears to be over for now.
That is genuinely good news if you are shopping. When there is no single hype shoe, nothing carries a hype tax.
The strongest single candidate: the adidas Taekwondo
If you forced me to name one, it would be this. The Taekwondo is the shoe fashion people have been quietly moving to — the martial arts origin gives it a cleaner, flatter, almost slipper-like line that sits closer to the foot than a Samba does.
Its appeal is specifically that it is not the obvious adidas. It reads as adidas to anyone who knows, and reads as nothing in particular to everyone else. That is exactly the position the Samba occupied in 2021 before it became inescapable.
It also fits the broader direction of travel. Low-profile is the dominant silhouette conversation right now, alongside things like the Puma Speedcat and the adidas BW Army. Slim, clean, low to the ground.
The women's answer: the Samba Jane
The Samba Jane is the smartest product decision adidas made this year. It takes the Samba and turns it into a Mary Jane hybrid — pared-back upper, slip-on entry, midfoot strap holding it down.
It works because it rides two trends simultaneously. The Mary Jane has been building in womenswear for a couple of years, and the Samba brings the sneaker credibility. It sits exactly between a sneaker and a ballet flat, which is a gap nobody was properly filling.
For the adjacent women's Samba variants, our Sambae explainer and Samba XLG breakdown cover how the platform and women's-specific versions differ from the OG.
The dark horse that already happened: the Superstar II
While everyone was looking for a new silhouette, adidas quietly fixed an old one. The Superstar II is a real reworking, and the Superstar is back in a way it has not been in a decade.
There is a case that this is the actual answer. The Superstar has something none of the newer candidates do — total mainstream legibility. Everyone already knows what it is. It does not need to be explained or discovered. Our Superstar versions guide lays out how the II differs from the original, the XLG, and the 82, and the Superstar collection has the range.
The models we think are underrated right now
Two that deserve more attention than they get. The adidas Tokyo is a slept-on terrace classic that fits the slim-silhouette moment precisely, and the adidas Japan is one of the cleanest quiet-luxury-adjacent shoes adidas makes. Both are in adidas Originals.
Neither will be the next Samba. Both will look better than the next Samba in three years.
What to actually do with this
When a dominant shoe cools, two things happen in the resale market. The dominant model gets more available and less expensive, and the successors briefly get scarce and expensive. Both are temporary.
If you want a Samba, this is a better moment to buy one than any point in the last three years. If you want to be early on what is next, the Taekwondo and the low-profile category generally is where the movement is. If you want a shoe that will not look dated in 2029, buy the Superstar or the Tokyo and stop thinking about it.
Everything in our adidas collection is under retail every day and authenticated in Portland before it ships. The lineup rotates constantly, so check the live collection for what is actually there today — anything named in an article like this is a snapshot.
For a broader view of where the resale market is heading, our 2026 resale trends piece covers the money side of the same shift.
— Anthony from West Coast Deals. Verified & shipped from Portland.