How Maison Margiela Tabis Became Fashion’s Most Iconic Shoe

Fashion girls can clock a Maison Margiela Tabi shoe from down the street — the split-toe design is basically an industry calling card. Really, the silhouette is so universally loved that, in 2023, a story about a pair stolen by a Tinder date went viral, with many pledging to track him down and help the woman get her pricey shoes home safe and sound (spoiler: she did). With legions of fans, the luxury label continues to evolve the shoe, recently launching a summer-approved slip-on mule. Yes, decades after its initial debut, the Tabi continues to endure — proof that even fashion’s most unconventional styles can have serious staying power.

Though Martin Margiela introduced the Tabi on his first-ever runway for Spring/Summer 1989, the silhouette’s origins stretch back to 15th-century Japan. At the time, split-toe socks (pictured below), dubbed tabi, were paired with shoes like zori and geta, traditional Japanese sandals. Interestingly, the socks were thought to promote holistic and physical balance. Meanwhile, the color of one’s tabi socks reflected social status: Wealthy people typically wore purple and gold, while commoners donned blue. However, the socks eventually became more widely accessible, with neutral colors like white worn for dressy occasions and black for everyday use.

Fast forward to 1922, when brothers Tokujiro and Shojiro Ishibashi introduced a shoe-like split-toe design called the jika-tabi, featuring a durable rubber sole, flexible fabric upper, and metal clasp fastenings. It eventually made its way into the athletic world, too. In 1951, runner Shigeki Tanaka wore tabi-style sneakers made of denim when he won the Boston Marathon. Two years later, sneaker company Onitsuka introduced the Marathon Tabi, a running shoe boasting rubber soles and hard-wearing uppers.

Then came Martin Margiela’s version. Though the Belgian designer wasn’t responsible for inventing the split-toe silhouette, he certainly helped turn it into a fashion icon. As mentioned, Maison Margiela’s first Tabi debuted in October 1988, when the brand staged its inaugural runway show in Paris. It was a memorable introduction: Models stomped down the runway in cylindrical, split-toe white leather ankle boots with high heels and red-painted soles, leaving behind blood-like footprints on the catwalk.

Unsurprisingly, the polarizing shoes elicited a mix of shock and confusion from showgoers, many of whom were unfamiliar with the cleft-toe look. In the years that followed, fashion insiders and art collectors were among the first to embrace the design, well before it found a mainstream audience. It wasn’t until the ’90s and early aughts that a select few celebrities started embracing the shoe. One such star was perennial cool girl Chloë Sevigny, who was spotted wearing a black pair at just 18 years old in 1992 — a style she bought herself (well, with a little help from her parents) at the SoHo boutique If.

Though Sevigny was perhaps one of the earliest celebrity adopters of the Tabi, she was far from the last. In recent years, everyone from Cardi B to Dua Lipa has embraced the unmistakable footwear form. Its evolution from underground shoe to fashion symbol can be attributed, at least in part, to John Galliano, who took the helm of Maison Margiela in 2014, five years after Margiela exited his namesake label. Under Galliano’s direction, the Tabi took on new life, appearing as loafers, ballet flats, and sneakers, along with couture iterations.

Many a fashion brand has tapped Maison Margiela for collaborations, too. In 2020, Reebok teamed up with the luxury label on an outlandish design: a unisex sneaker that fused the Tabi’s signature split toe with Reebok’s Instapump Fury silhouette from 1994. More recently, this past March, Christian Louboutin and Maison Margiela released an exclusive capsule featuring Tabi-style heels and ballet flats rendered in mesh and adorned with crystal embellishments.

The Tabi has, needless to say, become an internet-era status symbol, particularly among fashion obsessives (as proven by the viral Tabi swiper story). Sure, the split-toe look is an acquired taste — but there’s no denying the edge it brings to an outfit. And they’re truly one of a kind. “It’s recognizable, it still goes on after 25 years, and it has never been copied,” Martin Margiela said of the Tabi in 2015. Nearly four decades later, that unmistakable split toe proves Margiela was right: There’s still nothing else quite like it.