Willow Smith cut straight to color at Christian Dior’s spring 2026 show during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday, stepping into orange satin slingbacks with oversize bows and a sharply drawn heel.

The heels played on Dior’s signature slingback codes, cut with a bow at the toe and a sharply angled heel that gave the silhouette a graphic profile. Their slingback strap was set low, leaving the foot clean, while the satin finish amplified the saturated hue. The exaggerated bow emphasized volume across the vamp, offsetting the slightly curved of the heel.

Smith paired the shoes with a navy shirtdress styled in undone menswear mode. A necktie looped through the beltline replaced a waistband, cinching the oversize cut. She stacked silver bracelets over the cuffs and left the rest minimal, letting the orange heels dominate the frame.

At Dior, the slingback also tied her to Paris Fashion Week’s wider shoe mood — a silhouette favored on runways from Saint Laurent to Chanel. Unlike the muted black and neutral iterations elsewhere, Smith’s version carried Pop Art intensity, a vivid counterpoint that leaned into Dior’s long history of bow-front design.

The shoes also marked an early glimpse into Jonathan Anderson’s tenure as Dior’s creative director. Though the shoe is not available on the design house’s website yet, the exaggerated heel and graphic construction reflect the sensibility of Nina Christen, the buzzy footwear designer Anderson tapped to lead shoes at Dior this summer. Christen is known for creating some of the most talked-about styles of the last decade — Bottega Veneta’s balloon-inflated Comic Foam pumps, its puddle boots and Loewe’s toy-like heels among them.

For Dior, slingbacks are an essential code, anchored by the J’Adior style that became a bestseller under Maria Grazia Chiuri. By twisting the proportions into something sharper and more architectural, the brand signaled both continuity and change in its first women’s outing under Anderson’s watch.

Weeks earlier, Smith’s big brother, Jaden Smith, was tapped as Christian Louboutin’s first men’s creative director — a reminder that footwear has become a family calling card.