Anya Taylor-Joy Proves a Stiletto Sandal Is the Only Sensible Choice at Formula 1
There are those who attend a Formula 1 race, and then there are those who arrive at one — and Anya Taylor-Joy, it should be said by now, has always been firmly in the latter category. On Sunday at the Suzuka Circuit for the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix, the actress turned heads not with a team-branded cap or a paddock-casual quilted jacket, but with a look so considered and so precisely assembled that it felt less like dressing for a race and more like staging an editorial on asphalt.
This was, for those keeping count, Taylor-Joy’s fourth Grand Prix — following pilgrimages to Monaco, Silverstone, and Hungary — and the symmetry of its timing could not have been more perfectly scripted. Her press tour for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie happened to land on the same weekend as the Suzuka race, meaning she arrived at the circuit flanked by co-stars Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Brie Larson, and Charlie Day, among others, transforming what might have been an ordinary celebrity trackside moment into something that felt considerably more like a cultural event.
The outfit itself deserves its own podium finish. Having gone soft and ultra-feminine for the Tokyo premiere in Dior only days prior, Taylor-Joy executed a complete about-face — pardon the pun — arriving in a vintage Jean Paul Gaultier spring 1991 leather corset paired with Frame’s Leather Rodeo trousers. The piped leather combination was sharp, knowing, and just slightly confrontational in the best possible way: the kind of archival dressing that reads as both deeply researched and effortlessly worn.
The shoes, however, are where the story truly sharpens. Aquazzura’s Sting 120 sandals in dark red patent and PVC provided the exclamation point the look demanded. Matching red patent leather edged the insole, covered the heel cup, and formed a slim ankle strap fastened with a small gold buckle. A 120mm stiletto heel completed the strappy silhouette — lean, precise, and unapologetically high. The clear PVC front played off the linear piping of the Gaultier corset, while the hard red finish pushed the ensemble decisively away from femininity and toward something more architectural.
This moment at Suzuka was no stylistic accident. Throughout the film’s entire press tour, Taylor-Joy has maintained a throughline of stripped-back stiletto sandals — white Jimmy Choo Minny sandals at the Kyoto premiere on March 28th, white Giuseppe Zanotti Intriigo sandals for a Tokyo photocall the day prior, and ivory Giuseppe Zanotti Audrinette heels on Late Night with Seth Meyers the week before. The silhouette has remained consistent as the palette has shifted, until Suzuka, where she kept the lean structure and pushed it into harder, lacquered territory. Spring’s quieter shoe trend — the barely-there sandal, worn with conviction — has never looked quite so loud.
