Is Onitsuka Tiger Trending?

What the data shows

Search interest in Onitsuka Tiger has risen over the period: the yearly high moved from 19 in 2021 to 100 in 2025, which is also the high point of the whole series, set in November 2025.

• Peak interest: November 2025 (index 100)
• Recent level (last 12 weeks): index 86 of 100
• Change, first vs. latest 12 months: +442%
• Period covered: January 2021 – January 2026

Values are Google's relative search index, where 100 is the highest point in the period — not absolute search volume.

About Onitsuka Tiger

Onitsuka Tiger is a Japanese footwear brand founded in 1949, best known for the Mexico 66 — a flat, leather, four-striped silhouette that predates the modern sneaker market and most of the companies now competing in it.

The search data makes this one of the clearest risers in the apparel set. Interest has climbed in every single year of the period, without the plateau that usually interrupts a revival, and the brand now sits near the top of its own five-year range. That shape matters: a spike suggests a moment, whereas a staircase suggests a shift in the underlying customer base.

The likely explanation is the retro and Y2K cycle meeting a shift away from bulky performance sneakers. Where the mainstream market runs on scarcity drops and athlete endorsements, the Mexico 66 offers a low-profile, unbranded-looking alternative — which is precisely what makes it useful to buyers who want to opt out of that market without opting out of sneakers.

The risk in a run this long is the one every revived silhouette faces: visibility eventually works against it. A shoe adopted because it reads as understated stops reading that way once enough people are wearing it. Nothing in the data suggests that point has been reached, but a curve rising this consistently for five years has more room to disappoint than one still climbing from a low base.

The full story

Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66: The Octopus That Changed Sneakers

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