Article Summary: The adidas Superstar Square Ballet is the first shoe JENNIE has designed rather than modelled. It squares the shell toe, deletes the lacing entirely and adds a bow, which is a serious intervention on a silhouette five decades old. Two colourways land September 1 at $150.
The shell toe has survived basketball courts, Run-DMC, and five decades of reissues largely unchanged. It has just been squared off, stripped of its laces and given a bow. That is not a colorway. That is surgery.
The adidas Superstar Square Ballet is JENNIE’s first designed shoe with adidas Originals. It squares off the Superstar’s shell toe, removes the laces in favor of an elastic midfoot strap, and adds a small bow at the vamp. Two colorways release September 1, 2026, in Korea at $150.
What Is the adidas Superstar Square Ballet?
A Superstar rebuilt around the vocabulary of a ballet flat. The lineage stays legible, yet almost every functional element has changed.
The rubber cupsole survives. So do the Three Stripes and the low-profile proportions that made the original recognizable at a distance.
Everything above the sole is different. There is no tongue and no lacing system; instead, an elastic band crosses the midfoot to hold the foot in place.
A decorative detail sits near the vamp. Leather laces appear there, but they serve no structural purpose whatsoever.
Two colorways have surfaced. One arrives in Off White with Core Black accents (style code LB3786), while the other inverts it, with Core Black accents in Off White (style code LB3787).
Pricing is set at $150 in the United States, with a UK listing at £110. Notably, both pairs release in women’s sizing only.
Why the Square Toe Is the Real Change
The toe box is where the design earns its name. adidas flattened and widened the shell into a squared form rather than rounding it.
That choice is more deliberate than it looks. Most adidas ballet-hybrid styles to date have used slim, rounded toes that read as flat and wear sneaker details.
A square box reads differently. It borrows directly from the blunt front of a pointe shoe, which the bow then confirms as the reference.
The branding restraint is equally notable. JENNIE’s name appears with the Trefoil on an internal label rather than anywhere on the exterior.
Consequently, the silhouette does all the talking. A square-toe shoe trend built on a fifty-seven-year-old basketball shoe needs no additional signature.
JENNIE Moved From Face to Co-Creator
The title change is the story behind the story. She joined adidas in early 2018 through a group deal with BLACKPINK, then spent years as a campaign presence.
Those campaigns accumulated. She appeared in “Change Is a Team Sport” in 2020, promoted the CLOT Gazelle Espadrille project with Edison Chen, and featured in the brand’s Spring 2026 Superstar campaign.
adidas teased the new project on August 17 under the banner adidas Originals by JENNIE. Putting a name on the label rather than in the credits is how sportswear brands signal genuine creative input.
Her commercial case is straightforward. Her debut solo album Ruby peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 and was expanded to 21 tracks in March.
The group’s weight is larger still. BLACKPINK’s “JUMP” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200, and the Deadline tour sold out multiple nights in Los Angeles and New York.
She is not alone in this either. Her bandmates hold their own footwear partnerships across Nike, Puma, and Salomon, which makes BLACKPINK arguably the most valuable sneaker-endorsement bloc in music.
Balletcore Has Outlasted Its Own Name
The aesthetic arrived in 2022 and refused to leave. What has changed is the construction, not the appetite.
Early balletcore meant literal ballet flats. Now it means hybridization, and the sneaker-flat crossover is where the category has actually settled — a shift visible across balletcore’s move from studios into wardrobes and on luxury runways, treating the ballerina as a full silhouette.
The wider logic is category collapse. Sneakers now borrow from loafers, outdoor footwear moves into cities, and technical fabrics turn into eveningwear.
A ballet sneaker trend built on basketball-shoe fits fits that pattern precisely. Furthermore, it lets adidas treat heritage as material rather than as a template it cannot touch.
The commercial upside is women’s footwear. adidas has prioritized that category hard, and a sneaker-flat hybrid designed by a global pop star is an efficient entry point.
What Comes Next
September 1 is the date. The full adidas Originals by JENNIE range reveals then, and the footwear is only part of it.
Apparel has been previewed already. Teasers show a light-blue track jacket, high-waisted micro shorts, corduroy Three Stripes tracksuits, and heel-less, toe-less dance socks.
Watch the resale market on release day. Two colorways, women’s sizing only, and a Korea-first rollout is a scarcity structure, whether intended or not. Follow the labels, launches, and product moments that matter with our fashion designers’ coverage at Runway Magazine.
