What the hell are those shoes? 😂
RIGHT so sorry for u but these shoes are literally my favourite thing and biggest special interest so bare with while i Go Off
Martin Margiela was a graduate of the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts and aspiring fashion designer working under Jean Paul Gaultier in the mid 80s. This was a pretty popping time for Japanese avant garde fashion (with artists such as rei kawakubo making a splash in the fashion scene) and so dear martin found himself in japan.
japan, as im sure ur aware, is the king the ‘tabi’ style which actually originated in the 15th century when the country started importing cotton from china, et voila the birth of the tabi sock
later, the design woud be re-worked into a workers boot with a rubber sole and reinforced fabric seam
what is interesting about this style of tabi boot is due to the lack of elasticity in the fabric it relies on a series of small metal clasps to close and adjust (below)
RIGHT so back to my dear pal martin, he fell in love with the tabi design. pure and simple, my man was obsessed.
serendipitously he had been trying to come up with a shoe that looked like a naked foot rested on top of a heel, and the tabi answered that need perfectly. he took the tabi toe shape and metal clasp side seam to create his (unarguably) most signature piece.
let me set the scene, its october 1989, dear sweet martin has released his first collection under his new label maison margiela. this collection is incredible, a game changer, focusing on reusing and deconstructing clothing, pulling inspiration from the craziest places, taking place in PARIS, i would sell both my kidneys to have been there in a front row seat.
and there it is, the tabi in all its glory. the whole body of the shoe is in a nude toned leather, the heel a contrasting colour and material. the first model to walk out on the runway was entirely shirtless, the iconosity. although u can tell the tabi is my favourite thing ever there were other things that made this particular runway so special, including the use of chiffon shirts to emulate the appearance of french Polynesian tattoos
anyway, back to the shoes. newby martin was worried that the ICONIC, HIGH FASHION tabi cloven toe would be missed by the audience (lbr there was a lot going on can you really blame them) so to ensure that the shoes packed the punch he desires martin had all of the models walk on red paint over a white sheet resulting in this deeply unsettling and entirely fantastic pattern (he even reused the fabric the following season we love an innovative qween)
after that the rest was pretty much history, this shoe has become an cult classic and arguable one of the most recognisable signatures of any house. he released lots of crazy, avant garde versions of the shoe:
this pair was graffitied onto by margiela fans themselves, the pair below were sold with only a sole, the wearer had to literally TAPE THEM TO THEIR FOOT
but he also sold them in more wearable colours and styles
they’re a shoe you can still find today, and it had been a part of the replica collection since 1994, now existing in a shit tonne of iterations and available for both men and women, these shoes are literally my favourite thing ever, so yeah, mic drop i guess
