IT'S TABI Time

MARGIELA's singular SPLIT-TOE STYLE has eluded our FASHION NEWS DIRECTOR for years, but now she's EMBRACING a new way of HOOFING IT

- 

I'VE ALWAYS BEEN the girl wearing heels in a snowstorm. Back in my more intrepid partying years, I'd wear a strappy stiletto in the dead of winter. I do own sneakers (Converse Chuck Taylors are my favorite), and I do have a proper pair of all-weather boots, but I love the way a heel makes me feel taller, longer, stronger. And ideally, there's a sense of irony or whimsy, whether in the form of an embellishment or the kooky shape of a heel. A great shoe should have character! All of this is to say, I'm not one to be intimidated by a weird pair of shoes. Maison Margiela's Tabis are the exception.

The Tabi is the ne plus ultra of if-you-know-you-know fashion: revered by those who get it, reviled by those who don't. First introduced at Martin Margiela's debut fashion show in 1988, the shoe is designed in the style of a traditional Japanese sock dating back to the 15th century called the tabi, where the first toe is separated from rest, creating a strangely alluring hooflike shape. First the socks were worn with thong sandals, and later, starting in the 1920s, a rubber sole was added to create a work shoe called a jika-tabi.

Shown at the Café de la Gare in Paris's Fourth Arrondissement (no one showed outside the First at the time), the collection represented a seismic shift in fashion. Margiela's designs were subversive and deconstructed, a radical departure from all that had come before. The first model appeared shirtless, her hands covering her chest-all the better to emphasize her tailored white trousers with raw hems and her black Tabi boots, which Margiela designed with a cobbler named Mr. Zagato.