By Gabriela Afanador
Friday 22, May 2026
Photo via @isabelmarant on Instagram
There is something quietly clever about a collaboration that takes the most democratic object in a summer wardrobe and asks what happens when you hand it to one of Paris’s most instinctively stylish design houses. Havaianas, the Brazilian flip-flop brand that has spent decades as a fixture of beach bags and poolside afternoons from Rio to the Riviera, launched its limited-edition capsule collection with Isabel Marant on May 22nd, 2026, and the result is exactly the kind of pairing that makes sense the moment you see it even if you never would have predicted it. Four styles, two silhouettes, and a handful of very considered details that together make a convincing case for the elevated summer sandal as a genuine fashion object rather than an afterthought.
The collaboration draws its energy from a shared sensibility that runs deeper than a logo swap. Havaianas has always operated in the register of effortless, sun-warmed ease, the kind of footwear that belongs to long afternoons and warm pavement and the particular freedom of having nowhere to be. Isabel Marant, whose entire design philosophy is built around a bohemian Parisian nonchalance that looks undone without ever being careless, brings a creative vocabulary to that ease that gives it new shape and intention. The collection was conceived as a natural extension of Marant’s Summer 2026 mainline, which explored themes of nomadic travel, weathered textures, and sun-drenched fluidity, and in that context the flip-flop is not a departure from the brand’s world but a very logical arrival point within it.
The Sandals
The collection is built around two distinct silhouettes that approach the collaboration from different angles and speak to different kinds of summer dressing. The first is the Ikat Print Sandal, which works within the classic low-profile flat silhouette that established Havaianas as an international staple, updating it with an allover ikat tie-dye pattern across the footbed that brings a bohemian warmth to what is otherwise a very familiar shape. The vulcanized rubber sole remains unchanged, which is the right call, and the PVC straps carry one of the collection’s most telling details: the embossed Brazilian national flag that normally appears on the classic Brasil model has been replaced by Isabel Marant’s minimalist debossed logo, a small substitution that shifts the sandal’s identity from national icon to collaborative fashion object without disrupting the silhouette’s essential simplicity. Available in a vibrant hibiscus red and an earthy taupe that pulls from the warm, organic palette that runs through much of Marant’s ready-to-wear, the Ikat sandal is the more accessible entry point of the two, priced at $120 for the red and $190 for the taupe.
The second silhouette is the Studs Sandal, which takes a considerably bolder position. Built on an elevated dual-layer EVA platform that adds height and cushioning while remaining genuinely lightweight, it leans into the proportions of contemporary streetwear with a confidence that the flat model does not attempt. The straps are thick and padded in a puffer-style construction made from synthetic leather and technical polyester, and they are adorned with small metallic studs and baubles that reference the hardware details found throughout Isabel Marant’s mainline footwear collections. The effect is industrial and tactile in a way that contrasts interestingly with the softness of the platform’s shape, and in its monochrome black colorway in particular it reads as something considerably further from a conventional beach sandal than the Ikat model. The natural beige version, priced at $255, is the collection’s most luxurious proposition and its most directional, the kind of piece that belongs on a cobblestone street as much as it does near water.
The Bigger Picture
The launch arrives at a moment when Havaianas has been making deliberate moves toward repositioning itself in higher fashion contexts, most visibly through the appointment of Gigi Hadid as global ambassador in early 2025, a decision that signaled clearly where the brand’s ambitions were pointing. The Isabel Marant collaboration is the most concrete expression of that repositioning yet, offering price points that sit well below Marant’s mainline leather sandals while carrying enough of the house’s design DNA to function as a genuine entry point into the brand’s world. For Marant, the collection extends the bohemian resort aesthetic of her summer season into a category the house does not typically occupy, and does so with a partner whose manufacturing expertise in exactly this kind of footwear is difficult to argue with. The collection is available now through Isabel Marant’s website and select flagship boutiques, and given the limited-edition nature of the drop, the window for deliberating is probably shorter than it feels.