Simone Rocha's Ballerina Platform Crocs Pirouette Onto the It-Shoe Stage

On the second-to-last day of London Fashion Week, Simone Rocha debuted her Spring 2026 collection in the first-ever fashion show held at Mansion House, the 1740s-built Palladian palace where the Lord Mayor of London resides. Under six-foot crystal chandeliers hanging from gilded ceilings, I watched models walk by in sequin trapeze dresses, satin tailcoats, and pannier-hipped organza ball skirts that floated on a breeze. On their feet, I noticed the shoe equivalent of sweatpants: Crocs. Specifically, models wore the Ballerina Platform, a double-decker foam Mary Jane designed by Rocha in her fourth collaboration with the comfort-first shoe brand.

Simone Rocha and Crocs’s new Ballerina Platform doesn’t toe the line between ugly and chic; it unabashedly pirouettes onto the ugly end. Inflated to three-and-a-half inches high and trimmed with pearls, crystals, and bows sculpted into the sole, it’s a pointe shoe from a ballerina’s bad dream—something from the Darren Aronofsky Black Swan universe.

Without question, it will also be fashion’s next It fix.

The fashion crowd can’t resist a freaky-deaky shoe. See the rise of the naked pump made of mesh or PVC, or an ergonomic flat like the Vibrams FiveFingers—as close to the ground you can get without going barefoot—for proof.

As I watched the clunky Mary Jane rendered in both black and ivory pound down the hardwood runway, I felt the familiar rush of seeing a soon-to-be-everywhere shoe trend take its first steps. I was right about toe-ring sandals this past summer. I anticipated the retro sneaker boom two years ahead of its big boom. Come its retail launch in October, I know the Simone Rocha x Crocs Ballerina Platform will find its way into every eclectic fashion girl's shoe collection.

Rihanna will wear it to run errands around Beverly Hills, just as she did last winter with Rocha’s $175 take on the classic Crocs clog (black, covered in pearl and crystal Jibbitz). The shoe will show up at Fashion Month and follow in the footsteps of Rocha’s Siren Clog, which initially sold for £270 and has now risen 74 percent in price on resale sites. I’d bet big money that Julia Fox will also strap into the Ballerina Platform—again, that is, considering she showed up to Simone Rocha’s recent show wearing a white pair of the bulky Mary Janes thirty minutes before the style walked the runway.

Alongside the Ballerina Platform, an entirely original mold designed by the Irish designer, Simone Rocha's Spring 2026 collection included a refreshed version of the Classic Platform Clog in blush pink and black. Plus, the Trailbreak sneaker re-appeared in black and eggshell. All are due to launch in October.

In a May 2025 interview with The Times, Rocha explained she routinely teams up with Crocs precisely because the brand is so antithetical to high-brow fashion. “I did a collaboration with Crocs, then I did the couture for Jean Paul Gaultier—polar opposites of the scale. As a designer, you have to keep learning and challenging [yourself] …I enjoy the irony of taking something [on] that people don’t feel is what you should be into,” she explained.

Rocha is also part of a cohort of women designers in luxury fashion who understand that great womenswear doesn't sacrifice functionality. “I love a practical thing, and that’s why when Crocs came to me, I said, yeah, absolutely,” Rocha said in the same The Times conversation.

Bejeweled Jibbitz and an inflated sole aside, Simone Rocha and Crocs’s Ballerina Platform is a squishy, comfortable, and waterproof shoe fashion girls can walk 10,000 steps in. It might might earn a few stares and eyebrow-raises from passersby. But when you cross paths with a fellow fashion renegade, you’ll earn a nod of approval and maybe make a new friend.