The history of Margiela Tabi: A thread 
Martin Margiela did not invent the tabi, For the tabi, he was referencing the Japanese worker’s shoe, which traces its lineage as far back as the 15th century. Tabi began as socks. The split-toe design was thought to promote balance through the separation of the big toe a -
reflexology strategy that promotes a clear mind. It’s also considered to be connected to your sense of self, and it just happened to fit the thonged sandals commonly worn at the time. At first, the socks were exclusive to the upper-class due to cotton scarcity, but when trading -
opened with China, they became more universally worn. The colors were also limited by class initially, with the upper-class wearing purple and gold, samurai all but those, and commoners exclusively blue. Around the 1900s, rubber soles were added on for outdoor activities, and -
these, called jika-tabi, are still worn as worker’s shoes today.
Margiela wanted a shoe that gave the illusion of a bare foot resting on a heel. The heel is chunky and high from the side but narrow from the front, and the leather was a traditionally masculine choice. The clasps that run up the inner part of the boots were references to the -
original design he pulled from—he had just come back from a trip to Japan when he designed his own. Prior to founding his own label in 1988, Margiela had worked for Jean Paul Gaultier, and before that had his own line of shoes.
When it came time to create footwear for the first Maison Martin Margiela collection, though, no cobbler would take his tabi design on—the split toe was too radical for traditional workshops. As fate would have it, it was Geert Bruloot, the first retailer who stocked Margiela’s -
pre-Gaultier shoes at his Antwerp boutique Cocodrillo, who would introduce him to his future cobbler: an Italian craftsman named Mr. Zagato.
In the summer of 1988 at Paris’ Café de la Gare, Margiela staged his inaugural womenswear collection, the Spring/Summer 1989. It was a show bordering on art performance: Models drenched in red paint paraded with veiled faces on a catwalk made of cotton. Worn on the feet of these
models were the Tabi boots rendered in cylindrical heels, leaving their blood-red footprints visible on the white catwalk.
“I thought the audience should notice the new footwear. And what would be more evident than its footprint?”
Margiela later turned this first, stained runway — covered with the steps of the models — into a waistcoat which became the opening look of his next show, held together by brown scotch tape. Since then on, the Tabi shoe has become one of fashion’s most iconic pieces of all time.
“My inspiration was still very ‘academic’ in those days,” Margiela explained to Bruloot in a rare interview in 2015’s Footprint: The Track of Shoes in Fashion book. “Very British, 1900s, masculine shoe styles on feminine lasts, with high heels that looked chunky seen from -
the side and quite narrow seen from the back. The chosen leather, assembly and finishing were as those used in traditional footwear for men.”
Byronesque's poster for the Margiela Pop-up, which was originally meant to be held in one of Paris' last remaining adult cinema.
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