Tabi Demand Up Fourfold Since 2022 as Freaky Footwear Goes Mainstream

Freaky footwear has stopped being a runway curiosity and started showing up on the morning commute. Shoes that split the toes, balloon at the heel or look like a garden tool are now selling in volume, and the numbers suggest this is more than a passing joke.

According to the fashion search platform Lyst, demand for Tabi styles, the cloven-hoof design that separates the big toe from the others, has risen fourfold since 2022. Vibram’s glove-like FiveFingers, which give each toe its own pocket, are up 57% year on year. A few seasons ago, both would have marked their wearer as a committed eccentric. Now they are being worn to offices and even weddings.

From the school run to the high street

The trend’s defining feature is a love of shoes once considered too humble, or too odd, for polite company. Simone Rocha has covered supersized Crocs in pearls and gemstones. Etro has joined Dior and Valentino in reworking the cork-footbed Birkenstock clog, a shoe long treated as the opposite of fashion.

Price is no barrier to the appeal, and nor is it a guarantee of it. This summer, French gardening clogs called Gardanas, which cost £38 and come in an earthworm-like shade, generated long waiting lists, and not only among gardeners. Celine sells a similar mossy-coloured pair for £670, which suggests the look is being priced across a wide range.

High-street retailers from John Lewis to Zara have also embraced hybrids dubbed “Frankenshoes”. The sneakerina crosses a trainer with a ballet flat; the snoafer marries a sneaker to a penny loafer. They are odd, but they are easy to wear, which may explain how they travel so far beyond the fashion crowd.

Even the heel is being reimagined

High heels haven’t vanished, but they have been reshaped. Designers have offered versions that resemble deflated balloons or broken eggs. Tory Burch inverted the heel altogether in her latest collection, creating the look of a flat mule while still lifting the wearer. The most sought-after height is now a stubby half-inch “nipple heel”.

Why strange shoes now?

Dal Chodha, a writer and lecturer at Central Saint Martins in London, calls the shift “thrilling”. He argues it pushes people to embrace “the jolt of something that feels ugly or absurd”, and describes a “liberating place where more people can have fun with their shoes”. He has personal form: as a teenager he wore Nike Air Rift trainers with a split-toe design.

Valerie Steele, chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, offers a practical explanation. Shoes sit far from the face, she says, so wearers can “play with elements of ugliness” and make a statement without committing to a whole outfit. A strange shoe can be a low-risk way to experiment.

She also notes that this is hardly new. Medieval poulaines, with elongated toes, signalled social rank, and some were so long they had to be fastened to the knee to prevent tripping. Towering chopines, worn by women from the 15th century, also indicated status. In ancient Greece, sex workers are reputed to have worn sandals with “Follow me” carved into the soles.

What it means for your wardrobe

The history suggests that unusual footwear has long been a way to signal something, whether power, wealth or a sense of humour. What has changed is access. The latest freaky footwear comes at £38 or £670, from gardening suppliers and luxury houses alike, and is worn on ordinary commutes rather than only in front of photographers.

Whether the fourfold rise in Tabi demand keeps climbing is anyone’s guess. For now, the polite pump and the inoffensive trainer have company, and it is wearing split toes.

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