Katy Perry in Balenciaga

Katy Perry is jump-roping in Balenciaga ads because the brand’s newest sneaker push is being sold like a workout routine, not a red-carpet moment. Balenciaga launched the campaign on April 3, 2026, and put Perry beside actress Yao Chen and footballer Hugo Ekitike for two models called the Radar and Triple S.2. (balenciaga.com, wwd.com) The timing sits inside a leadership reset at Balenciaga. Kering said on June 2, 2025, that Pierpaolo Piccioli would become Balenciaga creative director on July 10, 2025, after Demna’s decade at the house, and this sneaker campaign is one of the clearest early signals of what his version of Balenciaga looks like. (kering.com, kering.com) That matters because Balenciaga’s sneakers are not a side business. The company’s own product page still describes the Triple S, first introduced in 2017, as both a “cultural phenomenon” and an icon of the house, which tells you the shoe has become part of the brand’s identity in the same way a handbag does for other luxury labels. (balenciaga.com) The new campaign splits that identity into two lanes. Balenciaga describes the Radar as a slender shoe with 360-degree lacing, while the Triple S.2 keeps the oversized Triple S idea but pushes it into a more technical shape for the Fall 2026 collection. (balenciaga.com, balenciaga.com) Perry’s role is not random casting. WWD reported that Balenciaga tied the launch to exclusive playlists on its music social channels, which turns a sneaker ad into a music-adjacent release and gives the brand a reason to use a pop star instead of only a model or athlete. (wwd.com) The visuals also show how Piccioli is steering the label away from pure shock tactics and toward body-conscious polish. Balenciaga says the Fall 2026 collection centers “the human form,” and the sneaker campaign translates that into movement shots, gym styling, and close attention to how the shoes wrap the foot and change posture. (balenciaga.com, balenciaga.com) That is a shift from the Demna era without pretending the past never happened. Kering said Piccioli would build on the strengths Balenciaga developed under Demna, and the easiest strength to keep was the sneaker business, so the brand is refreshing its best-known footwear franchise instead of replacing it. (kering.com, balenciaga.com) Perry ends up serving two jobs at once in that strategy. She brings global name recognition to a product launch, and she helps Balenciaga present luxury sneakers as something closer to daily uniform than collector object, which is exactly what a campaign called “On Repeat” is trying to sell. (fashionnetwork.com, wwd.com)