Meet the Tabi. Arguably one of Maison Margiela’s most emblematic pieces, the iconic split silhouette is inspired by a traditional 15th-century Japanese sock bearing the same name. Dubbed by Vogue as “one of the freakiest shoes in the history of mankind,” the Tabi exists as an eccentric melange of animalistic and human elements with an elegant leather finish that was once the epitomical rebellious and anti-fashion shoe. Now inescapable across the media and one of the most dupable tokens of consumerism and social media chic, the cult-like craze around the shoe doesn’t exactly align with its eponymous designer’s principles of prizing anonymity, non-conformity, and subverting traditional luxury. In the words of Vogue’s Daniel Rogers, the Tabi managed to transform itself from “Art School Niche To A Cornerstone Of Celebrity Style.” If he were to ever emerge from his reclusiveness, I wonder what Martin Margiela would say about the fact that one of his most central debut designs has morphed into a symbol of everything he stood against? Would the roaring success of his brainchild be celebrated as a classic proud-father moment, or more of a Victor Frankenstein narrative? Would Margiela recoil from his “ugly” creation, now that it has truly and undeniably become an almost unrecognisable force of its own?
The History of the Hoof
From its 1989 debut in Margiela’s first-ever collection, the Tabi has left an iconic footprint in fashion history, metaphorically and literally. Margiela’s models stepped out and strutted with painted soles, leaving an unforgettable trail on the fabric runway. This was later repurposed and taped together as a print in his next collection, a case in point of the mogul’s signature deconstructivist approach to design. Unable to afford the means to create new designs, these Tabis walked Margiela’s runway season after season, and, almost 40 years on, they have become one of the designer’s most recognisable pieces.
The bovine-like silhouette is a cornerstone of Japanese culture, where white versions of Tabi socks became the standard for ceremonies and formal occasions. Worn with traditional footwear such as geta and zori, the socks were believed to support mental clarity and balance. The unique cleft reflects the natural forms of the foot, harnessing the three points of stability (the big toe, heel, and little toe), thereby enhancing grip, mobility, and balance. As the shape evolved into a shoe, it was prized for its benefits over traditional silhouettes, being more flexible and offering enhanced foot protection for outdoor activities like farming, fishing, hunting, and military duties. The Jika-tabi was actually a standard kit item worn by Japanese soldiers in the Second World War. Being so rooted in East Asian history and culture, some critics raise accusations of appropriation, whereas others praise the designer’s “reinterpretation of historical fashion reconstructed in a way only Margiela knows how to do.”
The Essence of Margiela
Despite being a style stalwart in couture circles, Margiela himself remained enigmatic and shied away from the celebrity his label garnered, staying backstage after shows without exception and notoriously refusing to have his picture taken. This is the core of Margiela: anti-celebrity, deconstructivist, provocative and subversive. From exposed linings, frayed seams, his emblematic anti-logo stitch tag, and the use of numbers (0–23) instead of names for each clothing line, Margiela’s anti-fashion revolution became the signature of his house. The Tabi silhouette is perhaps the most obvious physical element of his vision in modern cultural consciousness. Martin Margiela himself proclaims the boot as the most important footprint of his career. A heritage classic, the shoe “captures the avant-garde and insubordinate spirit” integral to the Maison.
The Post Margiela Maison: from Galliano to Martens
Since the 2009 departure of the eponymous head of the haute couture mogul, the brand has evolved under different creative directors, each shaping the brand identity to their own personal flair and vision of what Margiela should be in the modern age. Where Galliano “held onto house legacy with the finest of red threads,” often wielding the Tabi itself as his main physical tie to the house’s heritage, Martens debut collection signalled a return to Margiela’s vision. Fellow Belgian and graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Martens took over the helm as creative director in 2025 and described his collection as “re-introductions and evolutions of archival ideas.”
The Tabi, however, has remained relevant across decades and directors, a seeming staple of Margiela’s enduring vision. Recently reinterpreted for Spring/Summer 2026, a new permeation of the silhouette, the Tabi Claw, was front row on the feet of Kylie Jenner at the Margiela show in Paris, a symbolic antithesis of the anti-celebrity culture Margiela is rooted in. The pervasive shoe evidently deserves its ubiquity across the internet and on the red carpet, and apparently with a red sole too, after a collaboration with Christian Louboutin for their 2024 Artisanal Collection. This unification of iconic luxury footwear features seemed to be a deliberate lean into celebrity culture, moving away from its more esoteric identity and solidifying the Tabi as a cult classic.
All hail the provocative and perverted
Desensitised and battered with hundreds of images online, is anything shocking to the social media generation anymore? Everyone’s looking for the next thing to diversify themselves from the masses, where even the word “niche” has become a buzzword. As voiced by British Vogue, “There was a time when you had to be a little bit saucy to walk about with your big toe separated from all the others, now you just have to be on the right side of Instagram – where alt-girls upload nihilistic memes and blurred close-ups of their dinners.” Owning the boot is a statement in itself, of both taste and wealth. Can we even call the Tabi anti-fashion anymore? With such stratospheric exposure online and on the red carpet, the silhouette loses its shock factor and becomes less and less provocative. By becoming so mainstream, the Tabi has lost the revolutionary and reactionary nature that was integral to its cloven design. Perhaps this was even the very quality that catapulted the Tabi from atelier to algorithm last year, in a climate where anything vaguely polarising or provocative can become a social media sensation.
In a similar vein, it’s been clear that the industry has been loving striking statement shoes in recent years. Think MSCHF’s cartoonish Big Red Boots and JW Anderson’s Paw Mules or Frog Clogs. The impractical and absurd becomes a status symbol, where “if you know you know” exclusiveness reigns, and a fugly shoe leaves a chic imprint of perceived fashion capital. In the words of Daniel Rodgers from British Vogue, your average Tabi-wearer attempts to visually remove themselves from the oversaturated aesthetics of clean girl and quiet luxury, it’s “sending up a distress signal that says ‘I know how to spell Ann Demeulemeester without having to Google the name first.” In an age of social media performance and obsessive visual signalling, is it finally time to adapt “the Anonymous Architect‘s” vision of anonymity and subversion, almost 30 years after his departure from the label?
In an era of visibility and virality, Margiela’s revolution is all the more vital to stay anchored to. Fashion culture is plagued by a degradation of its expressive nature as an art form, becoming yet another outlet for consumerism. Internet culture has warped style into an impersonal performance, a conformity to trend cycles and online validation, losing its essence of creativity and originality, which are deeply intimate and intrinsic to each collector. In such a sphere, a commitment to anonymity and authenticity remains radical, and the Tabi sits at the perfect intersection of anti-conformity and aesthetic hegemony, a paradox in itself. Maybe Margiela would be proud of creating such a stylistic oxymoron; he is, after all, fashion’s architect of finding pleasure in the perverse, and perhaps in this way, the Tabi continues to toe the line of walking on the wild side.